Dystopian View of War with Russia and other Matters

 

I think that there are some scenarios we can generate about foreign affairs, current wars, future wars.  This is not about predicting what will happen, but I am pretty comfortable that things that are mentioned below are at least one plausible interpretation of the facts at hand.  Assigning a probability to any of these is hard, your judgment is advised.  

 

I think we can agree, btw, that I should be working on things more relevant to my life than this.  But whatever, its what I think about and its fun to put this on the blog to be reviewed in a decade or two. The topics include whether or not we are in or about to be in a war with Russia, whether we are or are about to be in a war with Iran, and a few predictions or suggestions about resolving the conflict in Taiwan without fighting a war.  

First, what is Europe (NATO) going to do about the rogue bully on their borders?   The sanctions against Russia and the support we are giving to Ukraine have not restrained Russia.  They could not care less about the rules of war, about the starvation of large parts of the world by interfering with shipping in the Black Sea.  Whenever a Russian senior official opens their mouth they say the most insane things.  People need to start taking notice.  The destruction of the Kakhovka dam proves they are indifferent to environmental disaster and human tragedy.  They threaten the use of nuclear weapons and no one doubts that they are ready to turn the Zaporizhia nuclear plant into another Chernobyl.  No one likes to be threatened and Russia has turned into a worst case threat out of a cold war fantasy. 

Second, we are on the cusp of a war with Iran.  They are within weeks of having nuclear weapons, our ability to restrain them has failed although it did probably slow them down a bit.  They routinely threaten to destroy their enemies with nuclear weapons and they are the primary sponsor of violence in the middle east.  Once they get nuclear weapons, can other nations in the region live with this?  Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey have the resources to have nuclear weapons but we have restrained them.  Unlike Israel, who has nuclear weapons but is not irrational, Iran could and threatens to use them.   Not acting is a tacit approval in whatever Iran does.  This was coming anyway but Trump made it much worse, of course.

Third, China will not stop until it incorporates Taiwan into their autocratic dictatorship.  They have the money, the manpower, the technology, the armed forces and the will to do this.  They have a home court advantage.  We cant stop them, the most we could do is make it expensive.  This is a war that we can not win, even if we have a credible presence in the area.  So this suggests two things if we want to help Taiwan.  Recent events have proven that only those nations with nuclear weapons can defend themselves.  Therefore we could give them weapons and the systems to deliver them.  The second approach is to evacuate anyone who wants to leave and take their technology with them.  Put them somewhere like an enclave on the coast in Oregon, for example.  Then destroy their technology and leave a scorched earth.  The Taiwan semiconductor industry is strategic for us and for them.

It doesnt matter what I think will happen with Russia, Iran or China/Taiwan.  These situations are real and I hope that people are taking these situations seriously.

 

The Problem(s) With Assassinating Kim

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There is lots of discussion in the media and on the Internet about assassinating the leader of N. Korea, Kim Jong-Un.

Lets review some of the reasons why this is probably a bad idea.

First, in our modern world, assassination can be hard to do. Kim, like all good modern leaders and revolutionaries under threat, has many hardened hiding places. If he is following standard protocol, he is never sleeping in the same place for two nights running. He also never chooses where he will sleep that night until the last possible moment, and as few people as possible know. If you do decide to attack *all* his hiding places at once in an effort to kill him, you have to attack them simultaneously, because if he gets a hint of what is up, he will be on the move at once and go deep.

Second, as they say, if you attack a King, you had better kill him. If you just wound him or miss him, you are just going to piss him or her off and you are likely to be sorry. In the case of Korea, if Kim goes to war, Seoul is within conventional artillery range of some of N. Korea's artillery. He doesnt even need nuclear weapons to kill a lot of people (millions, by most guesses).  Much of this artillery is hardened against air attack, and dispersed.

Third, historically, assassination is rife with unanticipated results, so you had better have a good plan up front and plans of this type are likely to go bad. I am under the impression that the CIA coup in Iran was not necessarily intended to put the Shah into power despite what you read on the Internet. The plan was to put a military Junta into power, with maybe the Shah as a figurehead, but I could be wrong about this. For a more certain example in history, note that the assassination of Julius Caesar did not really work out for either the conspirators or the Roman Republic.

Although I certainly think that “decapitation” is a strategy that does have merit, it is not always a good idea and one has to be very good at it.

Qatar, Arms Deals, #45 Tweets and Reality

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We can count on our news media to superficially discuss any issue so that the ordinary reader, that is, someone who does not waste their time trying to figure out what is going on, will have no way of understanding a news event.

In this case, there are two events. First #45 tweets that Qatar is a bad country that sponors terrorism, bigly, or something. Second, the SECDEF announces that we are selling US $12 billion of Boeing F15Q air superiority fighters to Qatar.

Of course that doesnt make any sense but here are a few things most articles fail to mention.

First, at 36 F-15s one is no where near the price of $12 B, so I presume that this price includes the total cost of ownership over many years, training, parts, supplies, bribes, and other equipment and services not mentioned (e.g. intelligence related), etc. Second, our largest base in the area is in Qatar and it is out of there that the Central command operates. Third, this is the command that had to be moved out of Saudi Arabia because of course all Americans are infidels and Jews, and so Qatar "taking us in" was something of a favor, depending on how you look at it. Fourth, I would not be surprised to hear that Qatar does sponsor terrorism. Of course, so does Saudi Arabia. The hair's being split here may have something to do with whether it is official govt policy to sponsor "terrorism" or whether it is merely important wealthy individuals from these countries that do. Fifth, there has been for many years a defacto trade going on between us and many middle eastern countries which generally involves us sending them dollars for oil, but they then purchase from us a variety of expensive things, and of course what they mostly want is high tech military equipment. Sixth, I suspect that this issue of terrorism is code for a variety of other things such as the efforts of Iran to dominate the region and to destabilize the Saudi Arabian monarchy. Seventh, I think it is a weak argument to say that if we do not sell them these fighters that other nations will, but it is also true.

It would not surprise me if this deal is the result of promises made years ago. Qatar agrees to let us build an important regional base on their territory and in return they get to buy a variety of things from us. So whether we like it or not, this is likely to be a follow through on deals made in the Bush and Obama administration. Or at least that is my speculation.

Just a reminder that while the F-15 is an incredible airplane which when upgraded is still relevant, it is one thing to buy such a plane, it is another to use it well.

The point of this overly short post (many more things could be said) is that looking at the Tweet from #45 and then looking at a press release on an arms deal that happens a few days later tells us very little about what is going on beyond the already very apparent reality that we have as president someone who is not qualified for the post and has no idea what he is tweeting or what the implications or context really is. And why should he? He is just an overrated rich kid, real estate developer, and bully. What do you expect?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/14/politics/qatar-f35-trump-pentagon/index.html

John Kerry and the American Values of Lies, Betrayal and Hypocrisy

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Warning.  It is required of all right-thinking people of the world to hate Israel, but I am guilty of the sin of not hating Israel. I dislike Netanyahu but I think he was legally elected. I disagree with the settlements in the so-called Occupied Territories, but I look forward to the day that the world addresses its settlements on occupied territories before beating up a little country like Israel.  Shall we all return the lands won in war? What if we were attacked in that war? The US, China, Russia, the UK, etc, builds settlements in lands they took in wars, wars in which they were the aggressor.  Shall we have a UN Resolution to demand that they return those lands? I am all for it.  But to criticize Israel for actions that other nations are guilty of is blatant hypocrisy. All in a days work at the UN, I suppose.  

John Kerry announced to the world that the US vote at the UN to condemn, isolate and ultimately destroy Israel was in accordance with the best values of the American People. Now, what values might he be referring to? I think those values are lies, betrayal, hypocrisy and maybe just a little irony.

We are told and we are expected to believe that the Obama Administration did not initiate, encourage and coordinate this UN Resolution. Well, I suppose that one thing that we have learned from the last few years and certainly this election season is that lies no longer have to be plausible, that Americans will believe pretty much any baseless lie if they want to. But not even a nitwit, not even a Trump supporter, could possibly believe this one. Sure, appropriate cutouts (1) had to be found. Yes, America had to have their hands clean when someone put in the knife. Now who would that someone be? England? France? And then one of the little guys, you know like Senegal would have to take the fall. Of course it is just coincidence that this happens in the last month of the Obama presidency and before four years of Trump about whom, whatever else you might say, is apparently not prepared to sell Israel down the river. Of course, coincidence! The Obama administration does not even have the guts to say what everyone knows, that this last minute arranged vote is a reversal of 60 years of American foreign policy. Liars..

Betrayal is also a core American value. In this case we have at least two beautiful examples of American betrayal at its finest. Of course the United States has just betrayed Israel, that goes without saying. But even more delicious is the lovely betrayal of those in this country who support Israel's right to self-defense who supported Obama through two presidential elections. Obama waited until he did not need their support anymore, and then stabbed these supporters in the back, knowing there was no way to undo the damage. And he did it in a way that he escapes the results, he does not have to run for election anymore. The poor Democrats in Congress though are going to reap the implications of this. Of course the old Democratic coalition has been dead for years, this is merely another shoe dropping. 

But the highest value exposed here is our value of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is as American as mom and apple pie. Shall we review which of the countries on the security council have built settlements on the “occupied territories”? Well, lets see. Britain (N. Ireland), New Zealand (North and South Island), China (Tibet), Spain (Basque territory), Russia (so many places), and dont forget the good old US of A (Hawaii, N. Mexico, Ca, and frankly most of N. America depending on how you look at it).

Is there any irony in this episode? That would depend on how you interpret a topic in American history. That topic being to what extent Jewish Americans were involved with and important to the Civil Rights movement in this country. And even if Jews were important to the movement, did it really matter that they were Jewish, in some sense of that word? But to the extent that Jews were important to that movement that worked to achieve civil rights for all Americans, regardless of color, then some of the children of these activists will note that when the time came for the USA to condemn, isolate and attempt to destroy the Jewish state of Israel, that it was the first Black American president who did so. This seems like irony to me.

Is cowardice an American value?  Not that I am aware of. But one thing we can be very sure of here, this particular little betrayal by Obama was handled in a way that demonstrates that first and foremost, Obama is a coward.

But lets get real here.  Lies, betrayal and hypocrisy are three of the fundamentals of international diplomacy. There is nothing particularly new here when you look at the big picture.

_________________________________________________

1. A “cutout” is an intelligence term for a person or organizaton that is between the real perpetrator and the victim. It provides plausible deniability, at least under some circumstances.

tags: lies, hypocrisy, betrayal, greed and corruption 

Thanks, Obama, For Stabbing Us In the Back

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I think it is completely brilliant for Barack Obama to wait until the last month of his term of office and then deliberately and without (much) notice take a group of his very loyal supporters and stab them in the back. Now this tiny group, which is given far too much credit for influencing American politics, IMHO, can feel very, very stupid for supporting him these last 8 years.

On Monday, I change my registration from Democrat to Independent. I guess that old Democratic coalition really is dead.

If you do not know what I am talking about, then you are lucky and don't worry about it. If you do know what I am talking about, then you are right to think that this is a very complicated topic that has lots and lots of issues. What I am objecting to here is the hypocrisy, the timing, and the way we were used. And let there be no doubt in your mind, we were used. I will be interested to see who, of my friends, actually reads this and knows what I am talking about.

(from my FB post)

"America and the Global Economy" in Foreign Affairs

[needs to be rewritten with examples from article]

If you go to the following link, you will be able to read an article in Foreign Affairs by Jacob J Lew entitled “America and the Global Economy”. Mr. Lew was director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

If you register with Foreign Affairs, you will be permitted to read one article a month. Isnt that nice of them? I think that is mighty white of them, myself.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-04-11/america-and-global-economy

When you read this essay you may notice some entertaining little details. Pretty much every paragraph is either a lie or a threat except in the cases where it is both. What Mr. Lew is saying is that you had better do it our way or you will be sorry.  And literally the subtext is that putting Americans out of work is always good. And paying for insanity at the UN is just the price we have to pay if we want the UN to be around to do things we want now and again. Its our way or the highway.

We can count on Jack Lew to make the point that putting Americans out of work and supporting the worst kind of racism and anti-semitism at the UN is all in a days work for a Washington bureaucrat.  I have no doubt that he is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton and vice versa.

Wikipedia page for Jack Lew

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lew

The TransPacific Partnership and the Inalienable Rights of the Corporation

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When will American's wake up and realize that it is the noble corporation, the keeper of all that is right and just, that must be the focus of all our laws and institutions? By enabling and encouraging the large corporation, mere freedom and liberty is transcended by providing greater profits to the shareholders. America is based on this fundamental principle in spite of the whining of little groups of failed so-called upholders of liberty. They should realize that the only liberty that matters is the liberty of the large corporation.  It is from these corporations that all the good in our world originates.  Our entire political system is dedicated to empowering the large corporation.

As the movie, Network (1976), so presciently puts it, in putting words into the mouth of the Chairman of the Board of the eponymous network,

A lecture on Globalization

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today."

And so, with this so clearly expressed back in 1976, why do we have to listen to mere Noble prize winning economists like this Joseph Stiglitz who is running down the Trans Pacific Partnership? Who is he to say that this is the "worst treaty every negotiated"?  President Obama had the interests of all Americans at heart when he tried to steamroller this treaty through congress without discussion.  Sure this treaty was negotiated in secret without the input of the citizens of the various nations but so what?  Look at what Globalization has brought to all the citizens of this great nation: poverty, the destruction of organized labor, the exploitation of enslaved people around the world.  Shouldn't that be enough to establish a little trust here?

Joseph Stiglitz going on and on about economic inequity again

In America, our entire political system is dedicated to empowering the large corporation. As it has always been. As it will always be.

Its for our own good.

You can read about Dr. Stiglitz's rant here:

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/business/joseph-stiglitz-tpp-1.3515452

The IMDB page for Network (1976) is here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt

Dangerous Toys Beneficial For the Education of Youth

I want to bring to your attention a threat that is inherent in the emphasis on “safe toys for children” and in the related campaign against so-called violent computer games. I contend that not only do these games provide useful real and simulated experience of the world as it is, but other countries may be way ahead of us in educating their children with dangerous toys thus leading to a threatening and ever-widening "dangerous toys" gap.

What a child learns when they are young stays with them for the rest of their lives. Therefore it is up to us, as mature and experienced parents of these innocent biped mammals to see to it that their education contains the elements that they will need for a healthy and rewarding life, if you call this living.

What are these elements of a proper education? Well certainly there is learning to read and write, learning certain social skills such as not spitting in public, learning to keep themselves relatively clean and tidy, not to chew with their mouth open, that sort of thing. Some would include in this some pillars of a basic education such as the classics of western civilization (Homer, Isaac Newton, Bulwer-Lytton, Blavatsky) and the basics of managing hedge funds and real estate development. Perhaps not all classes of society really need the latter skills and education should be tailored for the different classes. For example, the rich may have to learn how to manage hedge funds but the poor how to avoid getting bitten by rats or how to find discarded but not completely decayed food to eat so that they do not starve to death, etc.

But all of us, rich or poor, can certainly benefit from knowing that the world is, as Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it, “a dangerous place”. It is a world filled with things that can drop on you and smash you flat, or people who will shoot you for a dollar, or people who think that they are entitled to distort the political system to get their way, or people who have beliefs that are dangerous to our beliefs. All of these things and more are true. So what benefit is it to educate our children to think that they do not exist? What is the point of waiting until they are adults, or nearly so, to let them in on the secret that they can easily kill themselves and others with that car or that gun? Or to keep from them the knowledge that there are rich and poor in America and that the poor have very little chance of having a decent life or receiving justice? Why keep from them the knowledge that as screwed up as this country is, they should have a look around with their own eyes and see how other countries are doing, some much better and many far worse. Or that people and nations and political groups lie every day both to the public and to themselves, often with tragic or disastrous results.

And that is what the campaign to eliminate dangerous and disturbing toys has set out to do. To hide these brutal facts from our young children out of the misguided notion that being sheltered helps them. Sure it may avoid a few hundred or thousand injuries or deaths, but at what cost? The cost is that our children do not have the first hand experience that they need to understand the world as it is.

Look at how far ahead of us the children of Afghanistan and Iraq are.  In America, misguided parents are horrified that “war toys” are produced and sold. But in Afghanistan, pretty much every boy gets their hands on an AK-47 by the time they are 10 years old and they are not toys. In America, our children do not know what an ammo dump looks like, let alone how to behave around one. But every kid in Afghanistan does. And how many American's have a relative or neighbor who is an internationally wanted terrorist? Precious few, I think.  By the time a boy turns 15 in Afghanistan, he has probably had many years experience smuggling opium over the border and killed at least one enemy of his tribe.   This experience so early in life is priceless.   

We shoot our selves in the foot, so to speak, to think that this pretense of a safe world that we construct for our children helps them or us. It just leads to shock and dismay when our privileged and self-entitled narcissist child has to face the real world. The shock may lead to total collapse and psychological disintegration. That is where this ill-considered policy leads.

But by no means does that mean that we have to start selling war toys to our children. There are other ways to get the ideas across that are more in the areas of industry and manufacturing than in warfare. My favorite is a toy my older brother had and which I loved. It was made in the very early 1960s by Mattel and it was called VAC-U-FORM.

VAC-U-FORM gave a child the ability to create vacuum molded plastic parts at will. It consisted of a very hot heating element, a vacuum pump, a contraption to press things together, sheets of thin plastic as material, and various molds to use as templates. Think of it as a 3D printer ahead of its time.

The smell of the melting plastic issuing obviously dangerous and probably cancer-causing chemicals was the joy of every teenage boy. One could easily damage oneself on the hot heating element, or on the melted plastic before it cooled. Or with exacto blades to chop out the manufactured parts. There were so many ways that a child could get themselves sent to the hospital with an irate and hysterical parent accompanying them.

Now that is the kind of toy that won the cold war. That is the kind of toy that bred tough and realistic Americans who were capable of manufacturing and surviving in this dangerous world. Its a toy that would send parents of today screaming in rage at the borderline-insane cavalier attitude of the toy designers towards safety or the lack thereof, not realizing that these toy designers were just trying to make America that much stronger.

I hope that America will come to its senses and return to these educational toys before it is too late. I could imagine a line of toy drones being used to find and disarm neighborhood land mines, for example. Or toy drones used to find insurgents hiding in the neighborhood during a play guerrilla attack. What fun that would be!

The future has so much promise if we just embrace it.

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Here is a video from the 1960s showing the VAC-U-FORM at work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCvgvWiZNe8

The Wikipedia page on the VAC-U-FORM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vac-u-form

Understanding Our Cuban Foreign Policy

Just recently the US has “normalized” relations with Cuba, a country with which we have had an awkward relationship for decades. But this should not have been a surprise because the real reason that we have been estranged has become less of an issue as time goes by, but it is a reason that you will never read about in the popular press and even many foreign policy journals seem to be unaware, or choose not to bring it up in their analysis.

I will therefore, in my own words, describe why I think our policy towards Cuba has in the past been so intransigent and why it matters less today. It has to do with how we nominate and elect our President. The explanation goes something like this.

It is possible to win the nomination of one of the parties to be a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America without carrying certain key states, such as California, New York, Illinois and Florida. However, losing such a state, with its vast number of delegates makes winning the nomination that much more difficult as you must make it up by winning a large number of “minor”, in terms of numbers of delegates, states.

Therefore, it follows that if you want to be President of the United States, you must work very hard to win these key states and each of these states has its own local politics and political forces who must be catered to and appeased. The politics of California are very different from the politics of New York and the politics of New York and California are both very different from the politics of the State of Florida.

If you want to win the state of Florida, then you pretty much have to win Dade County. If you don't win Dade County then it is still possible to win the state of Florida but its much harder and you have to win pretty much everywhere else in the state. But if you want to win Dade County, then you pretty much have to win the City of Miami. It is basically not possible to win Dade County without Miami.

It turns out that the City of Miami had a large population of ex-patriot Cubans and most of these Cubans had come to this country because they had to flee the island of Cuba when the revolution happened. These people all still had relatives back in Cuba and the whole thing was ugly and they are, or were, hopping mad.

Now you may say, well, we can not run the foreign policy of this country because one little interest group has a grudge because they lost a war. Well, thats easy for you to say, but if you pissed off this group you were probably not going to carry Miami, and if you did not carry Miami, then you probably would not carry Dade County and if you did not carry Dade County, then you probably lost Florida and if you lost Florida then you may very well have lost the nomination of your party for the Presidency of the United States.

As this Cuban population has aged, their descendents, although still not all that happy about Castro and the communists, are not as committed to the cause as their parents and grand parents were.

And that, I propose to you, is one of the key reasons that our foreign policy has been the way it has been for many years. It is not the only reason, but it was certainly part of the reason, and it is a reason that with time has become less important.

This is Ernst Stavro Blofeld Reporting from the Sudan

In the subgenre of film that has an “evil genius of international crime” there are several types of sequences that are required or at least highly desirable. One is the sequence where the evil genius explains his or her nefarious plan for world domination to our hero instead of just shooting the do-good-ing son of a bitch at once. Another sequence is when the evil genius meets with his partners, collaborators and subordinates to discuss the current status of their plans and review recent progress in achieving world domination as well as evaluating the quality of the work of the subordinates.

Although this latter type of sequence was always entertaining, especially when an under-performing colleague is reprimanded by being dropped into a vat of acid or a pool of piranha, I longed for more than mere fiction in my life. I wanted to be a fly on the wall when the real criminals of our society who masqueraded as politicians, lawyers, and honest businessmen would meet to discuss stealing the local election or the presidency, placing their venal and racist cronies on the supreme court to subvert justice, and other examples of this genre as it exists in real life.

Ernst Stavro Blofeld of Spectre

Now at last, I get to achieve this goal, albeit for a remote country, and it is every bit as good as I had dreamed all these years. The country is what we now call Sudan, and the form is the minutes of a meeting of senior security officials, one level below the presidency, to discuss many important issues including their secret relationship with Iran, their relationship with other Islamic countries, their control of opposition groups, their plans to deal with interfering NGOs and international organizations, and the plan to win the next election and thus confer another 5 years of legitimacy on this faction.

President of Sudan Al Bashir, head of the Sudan Branch of Spectre

Somehow, these minutes were leaked. They are originally in Arabic, but have been translated into English. You can find them at the link below.   http://sudanreeves.org/2014/09/29/arabic-original-and-hand-written-english-translation-of-31-august-2014-meeting-pages-3-6/

The object of the meeting is not so much to make decisions but to get everyone's point of view and to help build consensus. Those of you who are students of meetings could also read this document as an excellent example of a high level meeting of this type.

Here are the first two pages, with the invocation and the attendance list.

The best way to get a high concept view of a country, highly edited of course, is the CIA World Factbook.  Here is their entry on Sudan....  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/su.html

Those of you who believe is such things as “international organizations to promote peace” or who believe that “free elections” mean anything in this world outside a few western democracies, and maybe not even there, are required to read this fabulous leaked document from Spectre/Sudan many times until your naivete explodes in a puff of piranha smoke.

Here are some selections chosen for your entertainment:

Regarding the rebels, I, can say that we have managed to infiltrate their rank and file. We are following all their movements, chats, private affairs with women, the type of alcohol preferred or taken by each one, the imaginary talks when they get drank. We have ladies who are always in contact with them. The ladies managed to send to us their e-mails, telephone numbers, skypes, whats-ups and all their means of communications. By that, we are now able to infiltrate them electronically. We are following all their activities and contacts with people inside the country.

Or, consider ....

Another plan is that, we detain some of our cadres, but we detain them with their consent, and put them in safe place for some time, then we hint for some NGOs. And Independent political characters to campaign for their release. The aim is that, when our collaborator is freed, he will get protection from the UN. Agencies and will be granted asylum. More- over he will be supported by NGOs. Since he is considered a refugee. When he settles in that country, he can infiltrate the movements’ offices in that country.

Or ...

We are working to cause differences and divisions within the SRF to weaken and destroy it. The same policy of divide and weaken will be applied to all the political forces in the north, like DUP, Eastern Sudan, Umma party after we see Sadik comes back. We bring him back using his own sons Abdal-Rahman and Bushra to convince him. We collected all the information about the SPLM-n cadres and working now to launch a psychological warfare campaign on them to see that, they got divided like the SPLM in the South.

I love these guys. They are so great. It makes me wish I had pursued my dream to become an evil genius when I grew up. If I ever do grow up.

Sudan, home of the Al-Khartum Basketball Team

Great Moments in Ukrainian Diplomacy: The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks

Ukraine!   Ancient land of peace and harmony, how fondly we remember you!  There are whole chunks of the American population who are descended from people who ran screaming from that part of the world.

Political Scientists the world over are gleefully sharpening their knives about events in recent, what we might call, Ukraine. Experienced yet stupid American and European diplomats are reeling in astonishment at what is apparently their first introduction to the history of the region. Could it be that even today not everyone in that part of the world loves each other?

Of course, where there is war, there is diplomacy, or the lack thereof. Diplomacy is sometimes defined as that activity between nations or other groups which attempts to negotiate and resolve conflict. It has its own specialized language (which of course varies by time period) and conventions whose intent is to, among other things, see to it that nations are not accidentally misunderstood. Obviously the potential of misunderstanding is rife when we have very different cultures, languages and factions attempting to work with each other or kill each other or both.

I have recently come across a beautiful example of diplomacy which is worthy on its own merits but has extra value since it also took place in what we are today calling Ukraine.  I am going to present the following anecdote as if it were a colorful incident of history, when in fact if I were being more serious I would really want to dig in and find out just how likely it is that the following diplomatic exchange actually happened.  Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, I always say. 

In 1676, the Turkish Sultan Zehmed IV sent a letter to the Zaporozhian Cossacks stating who he was and that they should surrender to him at once.

The demand from the Sultan was:

As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the sun and moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God Himself; the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians -- I command you, the Zaporogian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks.

The reply from the Zaporozhian Cossacks (one of the many Cossack entities) was thought lost to history, but a copy of the letter was found two centuries later. I am going to freely interpret several different proposed translations of this letter but as I do so please keep in mind that by definition the best invective involves the pungent use of idiom and is very difficult to translate and still keep the same color. When for example I tell you to “kiss my ass”, I rarely mean that I literally want you to kiss my ass, although I might depending on the details, but usually the request is meant figuratively.

Detail from Repin's painting about the writing of this letter.  We should all enjoy our work as much as this Cossack

Supposedly, the reply of the Cossacks was:

From the Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan! 

O Sultan, you Turkish devil, brother and assistant to Lucifer himself, what kind of knight are you who can not slay a hedgehog with your naked ass? You shit and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of the sons of Christians. We have no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with you. Go fuck your mother. 

You are a Babylonian kitchen slave, a Macedonian wheelwright, a brewer of alcoholic beverages from Jerusalem, a goat fucker of Alexandria, a swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, a pig of Armenia, a thief of Podolia, a young boy who receives anal sex from Tartary, a hangman of the Kamyanets, a fool of this world and the world to come, an idiot before God, a grandson of the Serpent, and a curve in our penis. A pig's snout, a mare's ass, a dog of the slaughterhouse, an unchristened brow, you should go screw your mother. 

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife.

You won't even be herding pigs for the Christians.

We do not know the date and we do not own a calendar, but the moon is in the sky and the year is with the Lord, and the day is the same over here as it is over there. 

You may kiss our ass. 

Sincerely,
Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko and the Zaporozhian Host.

Yes, I suppose that this letter could be misunderstood.

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Notes

1. This is a scan of Repin's Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks which was completed in 1891 and hangs in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersberg.   Its Wikipedia page is here.  First Secretary Joseph Stalin is said to have had a reproduction of this painting hanging in his office in the Kremlin.

2. The origins of the Cossacks are much more complicated and vague than I had realized, Their Wikipedia page is  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossacks

3. There is a mangled paper online about some of the issues of the translations of various versions of the reply.  See http://home.uchicago.edu/~vfriedm/Articles/015Friedman78.pdf

Recent Events in International Finance and Visual Effects

This is part two of a series on recent events in the area of international finance and government subsidies that affect the business of visual effects.   This process has been going on for at least 15 years and it has severely affected the existence and survival of visual effects companies.  The events that I describe here, some of them a continuation of older policies and some of them new initiatives, will have a structural impact on the visual effects industry in the world for years to come.

It is probably helpful to recall that it is only since the early 1980's that visual effects has been significant enough to attract government attention.  It was Star Wars (1978) that started the process, but it was sometime in the mid-1980's that the scale of the industry started to increase.  It was the tsunami of shit that came from the digital take-over of visual effects in the early 1990's that increased the scope of visual effects and trendiness thereof such that this industry was seen as a likely subject of tax exemptions and subsidies to increase and control employment within a national film community.  Keep in mind, that at various times over the last 15 years, there have been thousands of people paid roughly $100K / year working in this industry.   Perhaps as many as 5-7 thousand people, although this number is not formally known to the best of my knowledge, and it includes to some extent the people who were working in "feature length computer animation" as distinct from visual effects.  Thus, the real numbers are probably not as high as suggested here, but are very substantial.  We are talking about 1000's of people in the Los Angeles and San Francisco area who have lost their jobs as a result of these subsidies.

So keep in mind as you read about these events that the story did not begin this year, but that all of these events probably have a background and history that I know nothing, or very little, about.   Also, we are relying on the popular press to describe these events and so we can be sure that the information is at best incomplete, if not entirely misleading.

All of these events described below have had or will have a very negative impact on the existence and future of visual effects in this country.  However, every silver lining has a cloud and in another post in this series, I will go over some of the reasons that these subsidies and tax allowances can be seen in a positive light, as long as you have no intention of working in the field in America or to make a living here.  Only a very few people in this country should be expected to work unless they are a visual effects supervisor, if then.

1.  The European Union extends rules on subsidies

The European Union has decided to extend and expand their rules on subsidizing domestic film production. Now up to 50% of a film may be financed by that government. Governments may require that 50 to 80 percent of the subsidized amount be spent within the country. A few months ago, France threatened to boycott talks between the US and the EU until this sector was exempted from the negotiations. In other words, they will not permit discussions with the United States in this area. How that boycott fits in with other international trade agreements on economic subsidies will require more investigation.

Read more:

EU Pleases France, Widens Film Subsidy Rules

Film Subsidies Save as Europe Backs Co-Production Friendly Regulations

2. The UK Special Effects Industry gets a tax relief plan

The UK Government has agreed to change the rules to make it easier for American producers to receive tax credit for work done in the UK. I don't believe these are new subsidies per se, but I think it addresses the issues whereby certain producers were not qualifying for the credits even though they were doing some of the work in the UK. The article in the Guardian seems to think that it is primarily the visual effects sector that will benefit.  The amount of rebate seems to be about 25% reduction in taxes for eligible projects, so the kind of numbers we are talking about here are significant.  See

The Guardian: UK's Special Effects Industry Cheered by Tax Relief Plan

3. Jim Cameron receives large New Zealand subsidy for 'Avatar 2 and 3', will do all visual effects work in New Zealand

The Avatar films are huge and would normally be broken up among many facilities. But now that New Zealand has put in a large chunk of cash, both films in their entirety will have their effects done at WETA in New Zealand, at least as large a project as Lord of The Rings was for them.

Read more here:

NY Times: New Zealand Increases Incentives for 'Avatar' Sequels

Article in the Mirror about Avatar Financing

To these events we need to recall that (a) the ongoing Canadian rebates for work done in their country, up to 40% of the amount spent, (b) Other countries such as India and China have made substantial efforts in this area although not formal subsidies to the best of my knowledge (India has very liberal "intern" laws that allows entire crews to be hired and not paid in order to "get the experience"), China has set up a 2,500 person 3D studio in Beijing in order to educate their own workers), (c) special subsidies by the New Zealand government to the Peter Jackson projects, all of which are major visual effects projects done at WETA in New Zealand.

From the point of view of a film producer, this is all good.  Talking some innocent investor out of their money to help finance a film, especially when they get nothing in return (e.g. no points in the film), is part of the Producer's job.  If New Zealand wants to give Mr. Cameron 500 million dollars over 6 years (or whatever the amount will be) why not ?

These events, which all represent long term structural changes to the "free market", means that in the fiercely competitive visual effects industry, any company that lacks one or more of these advantages will not be able to compete.   Which is exactly what we see today.   Asylum, Rhythm and Hues, VIFX/Video Image, The Orphanage, most of Sony Imageworks not to mention many other smaller companies have gone away.   Others, such as Digital Domain and Tippet, are clearly marginal.

ILM is a bit of a mystery to me.  They seem to be hanging in there, and of course they have the new Star Wars films from their parent company, Disney.

Here are some conclusions and questions:

1. The collapse of visual effects in this country is a result of structural changes in the international community which are beyond the ability of any company to deal with.  

2. This collapse has resulted in the unemployment of thousands of people on the West Coast, some of whom have moved to other industries, some have gotten jobs overseas if they could.

3. You should expect this process to continue with more visual effects companies in this country going out of business or moving overseas.

4. Any discussion of unemployment or the "business model being broken" that does not take into account the primary cause of government subsidies and tax exemptions is worthless.

5. Globalization is just Mercantilism by another name.  Our government could do something about this if they cared, but they do not care.

For those of you who believe that there is nothing our country could do to change this situation, please take the time to read any economic history of the last few hundred of years.  There are many things that countries can do in these circumstances, if they care to.

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1. In the early days of computer animation, many of us were not aware that "computer animation" and "visual effects" were completely different industries.  To us it looked nearly the same thing with a tremendous overlap of technologies and skills.  Well, yes and no, but mostly no.   I will write a post on the issues here at some point.  They are not subtle and its an example of how naive some of us were.

Vast Government Subsidies Are as American as Apple Pie

[Do not forget that the VFX Bake Off will be Jan 9 at the usual place and the usual time].

There has been a lot of discussion recently about various government subsidies and tax incentives to filmmakers who do certain kinds of production or post-production work in that country. The country that offers such benefits is in effect co-financing a film with their tax dollars, and in return, sees employment and other benefits brought to a very prestigious industry in their country that might not otherwise be able to compete internationally.

As always, in matters of this type, subsidies are not the sole cause of the situation. None of this would really happen if the industries in the subsidized countries did not demonstrate skill in the areas involved. In many cases, such as the case of the UK and London, there is a long-standing community there that is highly esteemed. Nevertheless, that industry is greatly nurtured and supported by their government's actions on their behalf.

Furthermore, let us not be naive.  This did not just happen.  The local industries have been working with their respective governments to get these advantages.  And can we perhaps suspect that producers and studios have also used their persuasive ways to encourage these governments to shower their beneficence upon them?  Yes, of course they have.  That's their job.  (2)

In the last month or so, three major events have occurred that will likely determine the fate of the motion picture visual effects industries in various nations for the better part of the upcoming decade. All three events are structural and examples of how governments manipulate trade and industry in their perceived national interest.  This is something we, the USA, does whenever it is convenient for us to do so, a topic I will expound upon in an upcoming post.  (1)

The net result over the medium term is that the American effects industry will continue to be destroyed, and that work will pass to three other nations which will develop the technology, employ the people, receive the money, the awards and the careers that come with it.

The issues involved in this matter are far too complicated to put in a single blog post at this time. The best I can do, with my other responsibilities, is to break it into about 5 posts on various topics in this larger subject. The topics will include (a) what has just happened that will set the stage for the next decade, (b) what the effect the actions will have on the domestic visual effects industry, (c) some of the history of international trade and preferential subsidies and other means and (d) the argument will be made that change will only be possible by organizing and working within the political system that exists in this country.

Failure to organize and express our interests politically, which is the current state of things, will result in the destruction of the American industry. Actually that destruction is nearly complete as it is, so the best that could be affected is perhaps a renaissance of those industries.

Without political action, there is not a prayer of success.

Next: Three recent events

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1. But if you want a taste of it, see to what extent our government is involved in the creation and current success of the aerospace industry.  This is not subtle.

2. Their job, generally speaking, is to make money by making entertainment product.  They make money a number of ways, but one way is to lower the costs of any given production.  If someone wants to give money, why not?

A Modest Solution to the Syrian Civil War and Related Regional Problems

When the domestic situation looks unsolvable it is a time honored solution to look to foreign policy as a way of distracting the locals from the government-created misery that is their life. Not only is this approach used successfully by governments, it can be used successfully by individuals to help avoid thinking and working on their own problems, a sort-of trickle down "distract the miserable" approach. Thus I have been putting considerable time into the Syria issue and whether we should start firing missiles at that part of the world.

The answer, I am happy to say is, No, we should not fire missiles. Nothing we do there will help the situation, anything that we do could have unforseen results. It is a no win situation for us. I am sorry that the Syrians and their neighbors are killing each other, and I am sorry that some of these people are assholes. But that is not a good enough reason to go to war.

But if you say we must do something, I have a proposal for you. I am sure that the small-minded scum in Washington will ignore my suggestion, but I am used to that. Pearls before Swine if you ask me.

If you want to help that region, forget about bombing Syria, ask yourself why is this region all fucked up (using the technical terms here, "fucked up"). What do the following countries have in common: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq? They were all created out of the former Ottoman Empire which is the country we now call Turkey. Turkey was also created at the end of WWI out of the former Ottoman Empire. This was all set up by the British and the French, mostly.

Since these countries clearly can not handle their affairs, I am referring to Syria, et alia, not England and France, and since this little British and French experiment in nation building is such a disaster, lets swallow our pride, and ask Turkey to come back, and manage the area for us. Forget about Syria, its just a province of the new Ottoman Empire, and better for it.

Bring back the Sublime Porte, the Grand Vizier, the Harem. All of it. I think that the world has given a good shot at letting the people of the region rule themselves, and they have proven to everyone how competent they are at it which is not very competent at all.

Lets admit our mistakes and bring back the Ottomans.

Furthermore, I predict that this will result in a massive increase in employment for certain technical people.  The Ottoman's were well known for the use of Unix, they had Unix everywhere, especially the Harem.

Perhaps the Harem is a problem for you, my sensitive, politically correct, white friend?  You might want to look into the role of women in the near east, first.  The Harem actually had quite a bit of power in the Ottoman empire.  More power than women have in politics in most of the contemporary Near East, I think.

Below we have a photograph of a classic Harem and concept art for a proposed anime-style modern Harem.

Also, the Ottoman's were quite stylish.  Check out the head gear, below.

Suleiman Himself

Map of the Ottoman Empire at its Largest

So in conclusion, by bringing back the Ottoman Empire to that part of the world, and getting rid of the current countries of Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq etc, we have a plan that will reduce violence, increase employment, elevate the role of women in their society, and add to sartorial elegance.  All of these things are good things, good for us and good for the region.

I hope you will support the campaign to restore the Ottoman Empire with your representatives in Washington.

The Summer of SIGINT

The title of this post is a rip from a new blog I have been reading, the 20 Committee, which is written by a former NSA counterintelligence guy.

He has a lot of interesting things to say about Snowden, the NSA, Wikileaks, etc.  See his blog at
http://20committee.com.

I am pretty sure that recent events and disclosures do not mean what the Guardian and Snowden want you to think.    The question of the role of Wikileaks, which is not an innocent, activist, web site, looms larger.  The question of the probable moles in the intellilgence community signaled by the 10 illegals that were found in 2010 has not been answered. (For background on the illegals, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program).

I do think that big things are happening.   Are we in the opening stages of another war, or maybe its just a reminder that the intelligence war never went away.

Between the Canadian affair, the issue of the undiscovered moles, and Snowden's work for the Russians, it would appear that our intelligence community has been thoroughly penetrated.

Unfortunately, this is not a John LeCarre novel, this is real life, and I don't think there is any reason to think that the good guys necessarily have to win.

The Uses of Snowden: The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

When Ed Snowden, our pissy and so self-righteous Defender of the Faith and of All Truth, who Sees the Higher Path and knows What is Right when none of his thousands of colleagues do, who knows what MUST be done to save America when all around him everyone else is Corrupted by Mammon or one of the other Seven Princes of Hell, when this icon of moral and ethical perfection had his passport pulled by the State Department (surprise!!) he complained that the USA was violating a clause of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and inhibiting his right to travel internationally and to seek asylum.

Now that is interesting, I thought to myself. One more time, Snowden may have brought to our attention some topic of merit that is, apparently, separate from the national security ones on which his reputation ultimately depends.

What is the "UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights" anyway, where did it come from, and what does it all mean?

It was written right after WW II and at the very dawn of the United Nations.  The head of the committee that wrote it was none other than Eleanor Roosevelt, former first lady of the United States.  You can read all about it at the link I provide below.   The key to understanding this Declaration is to understand, somehow, that WW II was much worse than you think it was and that people, some people at least, were idealistic about a new beginning when the war ended.  And so, this international committee of idealists and intellectuals put together a short list of things that "would be nice".

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone could be educated?  Yes.  Wouldn't it be nice if there could be freedom of religion?  Sure.   Wouldn't it be nice if people could express their beliefs freely, and travel wherever they wanted, and made a living that allowed them to realize their potential and not be thrown in jail without due cause?  Absolutely!  And so forth, and so on.  

Here is what it says:

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

My goodness, that is nice.  Constantly in mind!  Shall Strive by Teaching!  Progressive Measures!

Forgive me for being a little cynical here but we are talking about 1948 or so: Stalin is wiping out entire minority groups, people are being thrown out of windows in Czechoslovakia, Mao is demonstrating what he meant by "all power comes out of the barrel of a gun", the colonial empires of various western empires are meeting the post-WW 2 anti-colonial movements of S.E. Asia and Africa, and these fluffy liberals are making Universal Declarations of Human Rights.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is about 2.5 typewritten pages long, and is very easy to read. It is at: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Now that you have read it, ask yourself how many of these have been violated by this country, the United States of America, in letter or in spirit, at least occasionally?

Just off the top of my head I can make arguments that we are or have been in violation of Articles 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11.1, 12, 13.1 and 13.2, 14.1, 15.2, 16.1, 17.2, 21.1, 21.2 and 21.3, 23.1, 23.2, 23.3 and 23.4, 25.1, 26.1, 26.3 and I can make a case for a few of the others as well.

I doubt that there is a country on earth that could live up to these standards if they are interpreted as they are probably meant to be interpreted. So what is this anyway? Is it treaty? Is it law? Is it international law? It is none of these things.  In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, Chairperson of the UN Commission on Human Rights, when the declaration was being drafted and when it was introduced to the General Assembly to be adopted:

In giving our approval to the declaration today, it is of primary importance that we keep clearly in mind the basic character of the document. It is not a treaty; it is not an international agreement. It is not and does not purport to be a statement of law or of legal obligation. It is a declaration of basic principles of human rights and freedoms, to be stamped with the approval of the General Assembly by formal vote of its members, and to serve as a common standard of achievement for all peoples of all nations.

In fact, the impact of the Declaration and its legal status many years later makes more interesting reading than the declaration itself. Its a complicated tangle but it can be said that the Declaration has in fact had some influence, presumably positive influence, in many situations internationally over the years. Whether this influence has affected peoples' lives or whether it is in words and paper only, I couldn't tell you.

But I can tell you, that no country on this planet would believe that this Declaration prevented them from trying to bring into custody someone they considered a criminal, and that therefore Snowden accusing the US of being in violation of this Declaration is somewhere between naive and comical.

Which is how I think history will judge Snowden overall.

Naive, very naive.

Lawrence in Damascus

I can not think of anything more pointless and certain to backfire than getting involved in the internecine wars between various factions in the Islamic Near East.    May as well shoot yourself for all the good it will do.

And furthermore it will just make one side or another hate us even more.  I admit that in some of those cases they may already hate us as much as they can so it might not do much more harm, but that seems to me to be a very negative way to see the world.

If you have not read a history of the area and you do not yet understand where Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan came from, then stop right now and go read about it.   They were created by the British and the French after WW I out of provinces of the former Ottoman Empire.  We also had something to do with it but mostly indirectly as far as I can tell. We become more involved in the area after WW II.

Lawrence of Arabia enters Damascus in a wood-body Rolls that has been adapted for desert warfare.

So, why, oh why, would we ever get involved militarily in this sewer of shit?  (holding back my real feelings).

It is for one reason and one reason only, as far as I can tell.  There has to be a real cost to using chemical and biological weapons, a cost that even a stupid thug, like the ones that run most countries, can understand and appreciate.   If one does not respond to their use, their deliberate use, then those people now and in the future will draw a lesson from that inaction.

That is the only reason.   I doubt it will help the Syrian's one bit.

It might help some people somewhere in the world, as yet unknown, who would otherwise have such weapons used against them.  Maybe if we act now, some desperate leader of some country or military in the future will not use these weapons.

That I think is the idea here.

_______________________________________________

Footnote.

Because people always seem surprised when they get into a war and discover that it is expensive, that there is history, that people hate each other, that it goes on longer than it should, etc, I wrote a list of "things to consider before getting involved in a war that is in any way discretionary".  Some wars are not discretionary but some of them are and, where possible, it is wise to remember that discretion is the better part of valour.

I can not, not, not believe we are about to get involved in another middle east conflict.

Some Points to Consider Before Starting A War

The Uses of Snowden: Perception of the Death Penalty in the World at Large

This is the second of three essays on how Ed Snowden has been very helpful in bringing matters to our attention outside of the area which he intended, e.g. surveillance.  In this part we discuss the issue of how the death penalty is perceived in the world, something brought up because of Snowden's applications for amnesty in which he mentioned his concerns about being tortured or executed should he return to the United States.

Ah, the death penalty. What could be more American? An eye for an eye! Hang the bastard. String em up. Hang em high! A necktie party. A rough frontier justice. "And may God have mercy on your soul.... you may proceed", said the preacher.

There are regional differences of course. My favorite is Texas' "Justifiable Homicide" laws. In Texas you can get away with murder if you can convince a jury that 'he needed killing'.  

"You remember Jack. He was always drunk. Never did a day's honest work in his life. When he ran over Sam's dog, I had enough and I shot the good-for-nothing sonofabitch until he was dead".

So all is well and good, after all cultural diversity works many ways. Some countries have spicier food, we have the death penalty. Each to his own, I say.

What could be more American than a good hangin'?

But the world is filled with a bunch of damn foreigners. Damn it, its true, I have seen them myself. And many of them look on in horror at our death penalty, seeing it as barbaric, as "cruel and unusual punishment" and drawing far too many conclusions from the trivial and irrelevant detail that it is only the poor people who get executed while the rich go free. Oh yes, and that there *may* be a correlation, some say, between race and wealth and therefore of who gets the axe and who does not. Of course this isn't true! P'shaw I say! Certainly not in Florida!

How do I know that much of the world does not share our appreciation of the death penalty? Well it is due to that savior of modern man, that icon of all that is moral and pretentious in America, everyone's favorite martyr and photographic opportunity, Ed Snowden.

Yes, you see, in order to apply for amnesty in various countries it is useful, perhaps even required, that you articulate the case that if you were returned to the country you were trying to flee from, that you would be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. For example, you might be tortured or put to death. So Ed made that case and many countries responded well to the argument.

Because, you see, the fact is that this country is now famous for torturing people. Yes, we can thank the illegal Bush administration for that. But its not all Bush's fault, imho, because you see when Obama came in he refused to have members of the Bush administration tried for their crimes. Had he done so, then he would have made the clear statement that American's found torture to be unacceptable. But he didn't and instead made the point that people of one Presidential Administration can commit any crime against humanity and get off.

On top of that, famously there was one way to get shot in America, legally that is, and that was to commit what was called "treason" back in the day. But since one can easily use that word, and people do, they went to the trouble of defining it. Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1 of the US Constitution defines treason as giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy during time of war. And war is defined as being declared formally by Congress, none of this namby pamby "police action" or "humanitarian mission" stuff back then. Therefore, someone who may or may not be considered to have given "aid and comfort" during a time when Congress has not declared war could not be considered for treason. On paper, that is.

In fact, you can try anyone for anything and leave it up to the courts to decide.

Which is why, when Snowden got international sympathy for the fact that if he returned to the US he might be tried for treason and shot, the US Department of Justice went out of its way to say that they would not seek the death penalty.

They would not have done so had not the argument that we are a cruel and murderous country rang true in the eyes of people of the world. Two thirds of the countries of the world have outlawed the death penalty (which is different of course from whether or not their government kills people, oh by the way). The USA is the number 5th country in the world for executions, coming in after China, Iran, North Korea and Yemen. Now that is a list right there to give one pause and wonder just what is going on.

I was not aware of how we were seen in this area by many people of the world until it was Snowden who brought it to my attention.  Well, I knew a little about it I guess, but hadn't given the issue much thought.

Is there a possible way out of this dilemma?  A solution that lets us keep our death penalty, so important to so many Americans, yet avoids the onus that accompanies "stringing someone up"?

I believe that there is.   What if we amended the law so that only the rich would be at jeopardy to being sent to "Ol' Sparkey" (the electric chair) for their crimes?  Its only fair after all, they are the only ones who can afford the legal system in this country; a poor man or woman certainly can not.

I think that world opinion would respond to this change and recognize that we had significantly made progress on the issue of the death penalty and furthermore that we were taking a very progressive step on the issue of the very wealthy people in a world filled with unbelievable poverty.

I hope that all good Americans will join me in calling for the death penalty for the rich.

Thank you.
____________________________________

Notes

1, "Old Sparky" -- The Electric Chair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Sparky