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Controlled Explosions and...

...the Crime of the Century


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"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

Project for the New American Century | Rebuilding America's Defenses (p51)

For my money, which is what we pay to see films or videos like those linked to above, I prefer to poke through the labyrinthine Center for Cooperative Research, a mine of sober information on reported events, than I do wading through garish conspiracy chat rooms. However, an evening at the movies is always a good thing and, y'know, Bruce kinda insisted... The dialog, however is shit. Try this:

As for the American public, what the intelligence failure on Iraq should translate into is a new and frank understanding of the limits of arms control. Again, different worlds (Core, Gap) require different rule sets on security. Getting any state from the Gap into the Core means, first and foremost, getting that state to accept the Core's fairly clear rule on security with regard to WMD—basically "just say no." I know it's hypocritical for nuclear powers to tell smaller states to "Do as I say, not as I do," but on WMD I think that it's better to err on the side of order over justice.

What Americans need to understand about the potential (and real) proliferation of WMD inside the Gap is that all the arms-control treaties in the world won't do a damn thing to stop it. All such treaties reflect the conventional wisdom of life inside the Core, where mutually assured destruction has basically ended great-power war. That logic, or that security rule set, simply does not penetrate the Gap. So when states or transnational actors inside the Gap make moves in the direction of acquiring WMD, the new security rule set called preemptive war not only makes sense, it is imperative.

The above was penned by my friend, Seaman Thomas P.M. Barnett, bum boy of the Western World in general and Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski in particular. Formerly a conniving deviant in the NewRuleSets.Project of the Office of Force Transformation (NRSP link courtesy of the WayBack Machine), Tom ‘Pom Pom’ Barnett and his publishers down at the slut house, Esquire, have done more to tell us the future than any third-rate, four-year warranty rent-a-pol.

Forget my earlier posts which rail against the slime coating the mind of the man who penned The Emperor's New Underpants. As one Amazon reviewer puts it, "What he writes explains a lot." Today you can read Tom’s latest vision of the Apocalypse, Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Our Iraq Strategy, in full. If you find the day pass a hassle, you can read the thing on his blog. Read it now. Blowback from Barnett's shit-for-brains intellect will be hitting your neighborhood soon.

For those of us living in Africa, we can savor Tom Mazetti's overview of the new Pax Americana:

Even as it girds for a long and costly occupation of Iraq, the Pentagon is quietly carrying out the most comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. global force posture since the end of World War II. No longer will hundreds of thousands of American troops be garrisoned in the safe, family-friendly bases in Western Europe and Asia built during the Cold War, 'little Americas' complete with schools, bowling alleys, and fast-food restaurants. Instead, they will be pushed out to Spartan bases, far from families, in remote locations like Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, and Djibouti—places most Americans couldn't locate on a map. 'Anytime you have a global threat, it requires a global presence,' says Marine Brig. Gen. Mastin Robeson, who commands Task Force Horn of Africa. The goal is to better position the United States to fight a war with no end in sight, and it means U.S. troops will be everywhere.

Hmm... My post, Paradise Lost of July 27 last year, in which I quote Gen. James Jones Jr., head of the United States European Command, and speak of Bush's Pax Americana doing its worst to my continent, takes an air of prescience in the light of this envisioned lockdown, datelined October. But enough about me. We are Africans and will see you off without difficulty.


Admirals in Africa...

Now, let's get back to 9-11. It's more fun. Do I believe 9-11 was an inside job? Well, yes, but I held that notion as far back as my first posts, long before trash like Barnett sloped in to reinforce it. Anyway, it’s irrelevant what I think. It’s what you think that matters. You’re the people voting in the fuckers now tabling requests for FY2005 for signature by Bush or Kerry.

D'ya think the latter knows what Barnett's favourite admiral has planned for him? Nah...

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Note This post was edited after three comments had been posted and is now perhaps more derogatory to the person at whom it is aimed than it was when he stopped by. I'm afraid I was not aware of his visit. My thanks go to Professor Thomas P.M. Barnett for dropping by (with his Webmaster, Critt Jarvis) and for deigning to leave a somewhat miffed comment at the foot of this post. To wit:

I would love to comment, but the heat and the useless name-calling here is so dense I can't actually make out a point you're trying to make.

If you want to be serious in arguing something, you have to stop hiding behind the bad-boy language. It obfuscates more than informs.

Then again, it does insulate you from serious discourse, and maybe that's what you want. At least that's what I remember from junior high....

The professor has a light touch, but I do understand his reasons for being angered by profanity, despite his descent to the rough-and-tumble of the blogs. It is not nice to be slagged. However, should he be prepared to engage a common-or-garden blogger (better than an angry Iraqi armed with more than a modem), I'd be happy to debate his policy proposals soberly and without resorting to locker-room language.

Unlike the U.S. troops who, with brutality and profanity, arrested and beat up former Iraqi Lieutenant-General Taha Hassan Abbas in front of his family and APTN's cameras on November 22, 2003 (see 6:25 minutes into the clip for Iraq — On the Brink [RealPlayer required] at the Journeyman Pictures site; analysis at Information Clearing House), I believe I should rein in my anger and take whatever opportunity Professor Barnett offers to understand his rationale for pursuing an unsustainable, criminally dangerous 'globalization' policy at the cost of millions of lives...

...before he disappears too.

Here on the blogs, we post stuff to the Web and, often, leave it to the reader to make or take the point. That the professor did so tells me all is not lost.

I believe I understand why Professor Barnett argues as he does, but I do not accept his arguments or buy into his philosophy. Nor do I accept that he is allowed to get away with what I believe amounts to an active incitement to commit genocide and other crimes against humanity. I do, however (and contrary to the tone of my views expressed here), keep an open mind and am prepared to entertain his arguments if he feels it worthwhile putting them to me. I am as open to persuasion as the next person, and I will communicate as much to him.

However, until given reason to change it, my post stands.