Fighting Satan's Army

Fair and Balanced

The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people, including several key leaders of al Qaeda, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made.

Having not found recent material portraying Abu Ghraib atrocities worthy of mention in its daily e-mail, the New York Times' James Frey today asks Can Oprah Change the Phony-Memoir Culture?. With the recently released Abu Ghraib photos and the U.N.'s demand that Gitmo be closed reminding us that such barbarism is the continuing norm rather than a past exception, the Times points out that "The queen of TV talk shows has exposed James Frey, but the problem of fictional nonfiction goes deeper than just one author..." You betcha. My point exactly. I wonder if we'll see Oprah succeeding Condi Rice. Should she, I'm sure we'll get nothing but fair, balanced, investigative reportage and see an end to linguistic inversion and the Boys Own / Hercules Hurricane buffoonery of the so-called intelligence community and their armchair-warrior support services.

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons — referred to in classified documents as "black sites," which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe.

Washington Post | Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake

A Neocon Scrapbook

Required Reading for the New American Century [Abu Ghraib 2003]

"Today, I'm going to give you an update on the progress that we're making in the broader war on terror: The actions of our global coalition to break up terrorist networks across the world, plots we've disrupted that have saved American lives, and how the rise of freedom is leading millions to reject the dark ideology of the terrorists — and laying the foundation of peace for generations to come."

George W. Bush February 9, 2006

Okay, so thanks to our neocon buddies and their inept political puttpets, we know 911 was probably cooked and that the illegal invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran have nothing to do with tyrants, democracy, WMD, clashes of civilizations (vainglorious racism), or that much-loved but fast-becoming outdated stalwart, terrorism.

More important, let it be remembered that, as with Afghanistan and Iraq, none of these ghouls' long-term strategies (or concerns) had anything to do with Iran's possible development of the Bomb.

And, yeah, I know, there is no war in Iran. Or war as you define it. Well, I'll tell you this much. Your type of war—with its rquisite shock and awe heavily laced with schlock and gore—will be on Fox, CNN, ABC, etc. before you know it. The neocons have ordered it and the neocons are riding high.

In large part, I appreciate these guys' concerns. Staving off short-term damage to the oil-linked dollar by a Euro-based oil bourse is critical and, long-term, locking up regional resources in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America to counter the effects of Peak Oil, environmental degradation and climate change, and the diminution of the U.S. economy by India and China, is paramount.

The idea is not, as Thomas P.M. Barnett advocates in Straussian newspeak, to 'shrink' the Gap or promote 'globalization'. It is to take ownership of global resources and exploit them for all they're worth. Remember Esquire's strapline to his article, The Pentagon's New Map?

It explains why we're going to war. And why we'll keep going to war.


The New American Flag [Abu Ghraib 2003]

Well, that's the way it is and that's the way it's going to be. For as long as it takes. There's nothing as ugly as liberals gone bad. Smart, they're mean and vicious, projecting the full weight of their dark souls onto the world about them. They then attempt suicide by proxy.

Full-spectrum dominance lends substance to their Grand Unitifed Theory (GUT) and their arrogance imbues them with an unshakable belief in their ability to swing it. More, they know they have to. Not for nothing do they play on visions of the Apocalypse. If the wheels are going to come off, they'll do so in a big way.

Anti-war movement? What anti-war movement? There is no anti-war movement. Like the man says: you'll keep going to war. Having not deviated from their long-publicized agenda, the neocons will have their way. Get used to it. Prepare for the draft or, if you live elsewhere, prepare to be bombed. The Americans are coming.

Forcing an artificial 'clash of civilizations' by playing off apocalyptic Western and fatalistic Middle Eastern religious narratives is merely another in a long string of tactics, going back way before 911 to WWII. It builds on Kennedy's covert operations (the CIA is not as dumb as it makes out), Johnson's carpet bombing, Reagan's Star Wars, Nixon, Kissinger and Clinton's Kiss of Death, George H. Bush's New World Order, the perpetuation of the dollar's influence by extortionist banking, lending and aid policies implemented by the World Bank, WTO, IMF, G8, Monsanto, etc.

These things have been thought out, planned, trialled, tested and honed over decades. Globally, almost every country has served as a test bed. Applied in moderation, such tactics work.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and, as the polar ice cap reflects a nine percent annual thaw, all such resources are being brought to bear on building an empire mirroring that of Rome. In short, George W. Bush is Occupation Man. But, to put the world to work for the U.S. and its subservient allies, is a case of too much too late. It cannot work. The neocons will not beat the deadlines set by dwindling resources and irreversible global warming.


Spreading freedom throughout the world [Abu Ghraib 2003]

Who pays for neocon fantasy, First World consumer greed and The Long War? Ordinary people whose fortitude derives from their cultures having been around centuries before Vikings decided to sail the Seine, sack Paris, and move on to give the English a good smack. They'll outwit, outfight, outlive and outlast what is, when all is said and done, a shoddy plan, the moral decrepitude of which is born of paranoia, delusion, and desperation.

They'll defeat the empire because the neocon strategy ultimately calls for 'remote policing' (be it by diplomacy, economic strategy, or bunker busters) or for building enormous, fortified garrisons in every country falling into America's 'sphere of influence'.

Subjugation by bombing from space is a long way off. Threats of nuclear devastation are laughed at (although a one-sided nuclear holocaust should not be dismissed). And while most suffer or ignore American strategies, Hugo Chavez mocks them for their impotence. Western partners too doubt the Yanks can pull this off, and are hedging their bets.

With the States, convinced of its inalienable right to dominate the globe, against the ropes in the fifteenth round and looking for a knockout punch, who comes out ahead? So far, Russia's doing a good job playing honest broker. The EU is doing a lousy imitation of buttering its bread both sides. China forges on. Australia, India, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are skittish. Most Muslim countries, especially the world's fourth largest, Indonesia, couldn't give a damn (it'll be under water in a few decades). Neither could Pakistan.

Hell, like the neocons, the ISI deal in real politiek. They see another end, one for which the authors of the New American Century have no Plan B.

Look, I realize scenarios catering to most every eventuality have been dreamt up, played out, and planned for in countless liberally funded think tanks. These guys may be stupid but, hell, they're certainly not dumb. Still, the solution to one problem begets another. And we usually overlook the most obvious. The neocons' most glaring flaw is their failure to credit other peoples, cultures and nationalities with spine. Most don't want to become slaves to First World fancies and most will refuse to do so.

And that'll be the end of The Long War. And, with their self-proclaimed right to filch Earth's remaining resources for their own use in tatters, the United States, like the rest of us with whom it might have worked, will be kaput.

Tough.

First, the state of our union is strong and is getting stronger. And I want to thank you all for putting policies in place that, on the one hand, spread prosperity throughout the country and, at the same time, spread freedom and peace throughout the world."

George W. Bush February 9, 2006

The United States has criticized the release of grisly images by an Australian television network, which shows apparent detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq [my italics].

The program did not show all of the pictures. It deemed some of them too graphic for air, Carey said. Among the images broadcast were pictures of naked men who appeared to have suffered physical trauma, one of whom the report said had 11 non-lethal bullet wounds in his buttocks.

Other pictures show corpses, one of which the program said a U.S. Army report identified as one of three men killed during a riot over living conditions at the prison. According to the TV report, two Abu Ghraib soldiers said that guards were ordered to use lethal rounds on prisoners after they ran out of rubber bullets trying to halt the riot.

One image depicts two women described by a guard to "Dateline" as prostitutes held at the prison for two days. In one picture, the breasts of one of the women are exposed. Another grisly image shows a corpse that appears to have had a section torn from its head, while another one features a man whose arms are covered in purple bruises.

Also broadcast was video that appears to show a prisoner — handcuffed to a metal door — repeatedly slamming his head full force against the door. Though the guards appear to have videotaped the incident from several vantage points, no one is seen intervening to stop the prisoner.

CNN | U.S. slams 'prisoner abuse' leak

Oh dear, here we go again. The same CeeNoNews report offers a video, Watch why the hoods, nudity and poses suggest abuse -- 2:02 [CNN popup and, again, my italics]. It does nothing of the kind. General John Abizaid merely covers the Pentagon's considerable ass, berating Australia's Dateline for releasing the videos and photographs and denying that such abuses continue.

A comprehensive dossier is available at Salon.com, as is the article The Abu Ghraib files and the site's rationale for publishing the material available to it.

And, now, not content with bleating about Abu Ghraib, the Yanks are decidedly aggrieved that the United Nations Organization should take it upon itself to call for the closure of the illegal concentration camp and torture center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At the rate it's going, the U.S. State Department will soon be indistinguishable from Israel.

Abu Ghraib cannot be allowed to fade away like some half-forgotten domestic political controversy, which may have prompted newsmagazine covers at the time, but now seems as irrelevant as the 2002 elections. Abu Ghraib is not an issue of partisan sound bites or refighting the decision to invade Iraq. Grotesque violations of every value that America proclaims occurred within the walls of that prison. These abuses were carried out by soldiers who wore our flag on their uniforms and apparently believed that Americans here at home would approve of their conduct. Rather than hiding what they did out of shame, they commemorated their sadism with a visual record.

Salon | Why we're publishing the new Abu Ghraib photos

And Tom Feeley has the Dateline video over at InformationClearingHouse.

Yeah, it bears repeating...



Prisoner forced to sodomize himself [Abu Ghraib 2003]

"First, the state of our union is strong and is getting stronger. And I want to thank you all for putting policies in place that, on the one hand, spread prosperity throughout the country and, at the same time, spread freedom and peace throughout the world."

George W. Bush February 9, 2006

Go fuck yourself, Dubya.

Democracy

...and the democratic state. [Graphic: James Neff]

It's coming from the sorrow in the street, | The holy places where the races meet; | From the homicidal bitchin' | That goes down in every kitchen | To determine who will serve and who will eat. | From the wells of disappointment | Where the women kneel to pray | For the grace of God in the desert here | And the desert far away: | Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.

The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

New York Times | U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk of Hamas Ouster

Nice, eh?

It's coming to America first, | The cradle of the best and of the worst. | It's here they got the range | And the machinery for change | And it's here they got the spiritual thirst. | It's here the family's broken | And it's here the lonely say | That the heart has got to open | In a fundamental way: | Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Leonard Cohen | Democracy

The US House of Representatives has voted to cut direct US aid to the Palestinian Authority unless Hamas renounces its call to destroy Israel.

BBC | Hamas win prompts US aid cut vote

Is it not possible to do the same to the States? Convert oil sales to Euros or something—if they don't get the fuck out of the 130-plus countries in which they have a belligerent military presence?

Who's Destroyed the NPT?

Pentagon plans bomb blitz...

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Tehran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb. ... "This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."

The Age | Pentagon plans bomb blitz on Iran's nuclear sites

Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt. They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.

The Telegraph | US prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites

The former U.N. weapons inspector who said Iraq disarmed long before the U.S. invasion in 2003 is warning Americans to prepare for a war with Iran.

"We just don't know when, but it's going to happen," Scott Ritter said to a crowd of about 150 at the James A. Little Theater on Sunday night. ... He predicted the matter will wind up before the U.N. Security Council, which will determine there is no evidence of a weapons program. Then, he said, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, "...will deliver a speech that has already been written. It says America cannot allow Iran to threaten the United States and we must unilaterally defend ourselves."

"How do I know this? I've talked to Bolton's speechwriter," Ritter said.

TMCNet | Ritter warns that another U.S. invasion in Mideast is imminent [February 9, 2006]

"The West is hiding its ugly face behind international bodies, but these bodies have no reputation among nations. You have destroyed the reputation of the NPT."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

For God's Sake...

You're saying that you personally see it as defamation?

I'm deeply distressed that many Muslims have seen the drawings as a defamation of the Prophet Mohamed...

Al-Ahram | Danish Prime Minister Andres Fogh Rasmussen


'It's a purely secular matter...'

While some on principles baptized | To strict party platform ties | Social clubs in drag disguise | Outsiders they can freely criticize | Tell nothing except who to idolize | And then say God bless him.

A campaign is emerging to depict Islam as an inferior culture that is incompatible with "Western values." There are clear parallels here to the anti-Semitic caricatures that were spread in the 1930s by fascist newspapers such as the Nazi Stürmer. The depiction of Jews as sub-humans served as the ideological preparation for the Holocaust.

Today the systematic defamation of Muslims is being used to prepare public opinion for new wars against countries such as Iran and Syria—wars which will be even more brutal than the Iraq war, and could well involve the use of nuclear weapons.

It is no coincidence that it was the Jyllands-Posten that took up this initiative. The newspaper is notorious for its declarations of support for the Nazis in the 1930s, and has played a key role in Denmark’s recent shift to the right.

Peter Schwarz | Denmark and Jyllands-Posten: The background to a provocation

The fact that the editors behind the anti-Islamic images claim to be exercising free speech while refusing to address Europe's strict censorship laws regarding discussion of the Holocaust and the ongoing imprisonment of historical revisionists reveals the existence of a more sinister agenda behind the provocative cartoons.

"Agents of certain persuasion" are behind the egregious affront to Islam in order to provoke Muslims, Professor Mikael Rothstein of the University of Copenhagen told the BBC. The key "agent" is Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of JP [Jyllands-Posten], who commissioned cartoonists to produce the blasphemous images and then published them in Denmark's leading morning paper last September.

Christopher Bollyn | Why the European Press is Provoking Muslims

Muslims have been deeply insulted by much of Europe's behaviour regarding the Danish cartoons, but not only regarding the cartoons, because our concerns and fears are much wider and deeper than that. Many ordinary citizens in the Arab-Asian region see the European position on Iran's nuclear industry and the victorious Hamas party in Palestine as moving closer to American-Israeli positions that grossly discriminate against Arabs or Muslims.

Coming after the American-led assault on Iraq, this explains why large majorities of people polled in Arab countries just three months ago believe that the main motives of American policies in the Middle East are "oil, protecting Israel, dominating the region and weakening the Muslim world".

The Age | The real truth behind the cartoons fury

If Muslims have felt there has been a conspiracy against them, starting with the invasion of Afghanistan, then Iraq, (and comparing it to the Christians' Medieval wars against Muslims in the Holy Land) they feel it all the more so now. They view the cartoons as part of the West's strategy to eradicate Islam and destroy the Muslim culture.

Up to now, most Muslims have felt they could tolerate the killing of thousands of innocents in Iraq, but the cartoons have unified Sunnis, Shi'ites; all the Muslim sects, like no other single act of Western aggression against them has.

"They've actually done us a favour", says Dr Joma. "Instead of driving us apart, they've drawn us together. No Muslim, regardless of how conservative or moderate he or she is, will tolerate the denigration of their most sacred symbol; the most revered person in Islam. The Danes and their supporters have made a double mistake. Not only did they insult Islam, they insulted the Prophet."

News24.com | Why the Muslims are so angry

Disillusioned words like bullets bark | As human gods aim for their mark | Made everything from toy guns that spark | To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark | It's easy to see without looking too far | That not much | Is really sacred.

Bob Dylan | It's Alright, Ma

"They have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist empire."

Donald Rumsfeld

"The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war."

"It will take unity of effort to win the long war in which our Nation is engaged."

"As we continue in the fifth year of this long global war, the ideas and proposals in this document are provided as a roadmap for change, leading to victory."

"The Department of Defense conducted the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) in the fourth year of a long war, a war that is irregular in its nature."

"This wartime construct, described in detail later in this Report, makes adjustments to better capture the realities of a long war by..."

"Giving greater emphasis to the war on terror and irregular warfare activities, including long-duration unconventional warfare, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and military support for stabilization and reconstruction efforts."

"Since 2001 the U.S. military has been continuously at war, but fighting a conflict that is markedly different from wars of the past. The enemies we face are not nation-states but rather dispersed non-state networks. In many cases, actions must occur on many continents in countries with which the United States is not at war. Unlike the image many have of war, this struggle cannot be won by military force alone, or even principally. And it is a struggle that may last for some years to come. On any given day, nearly 350,000 men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces are deployed or stationed in approximately 130 countries. They are battle-hardened from operations over the past four years, fighting the enemies of freedom as part of this long war. They maintain the Nation’s treaty obligations and international commitments. They protect and advance U.S. interests and values. They are often asked to be protectors of the peace and providers of relief. They are a force for good."

Ho ho ho...

"Like Afghanistan, Iraq is a crucial battleground in the long war against terrorism."

"As more Iraqi units gain confidence and operational experience, they will increasingly take the lead in security operations. This example is a model for the future: helping others to help themselves is critical to winning the long war."

"The long war against terrorist networks extends far beyond the borders of Iraq and Afghanistan and includes many operations characterized by irregular warfare – operations in which the enemy is not a regular military force of a nation-state."

"Today, efforts large and small on five continents demonstrate the importance of being able to work with and through partners, to operate clandestinely and to sustain a persistent but low-visibility presence. Such efforts represent an application of the indirect approach to the long war."

"The Military Departments have also begun more intensive cultural and language training, which over time will create a more culturally aware, linguistically capable force, better able to forge victory in the long war."

"The long war has also seen U.S. forces taking on greater roles at home. Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, U.S. forces were called upon to assist in securing the homeland."

"The Department applied these lessons over the course of the QDR as it identified changes to the mix of joint capabilities and the enterprise-wide reforms needed to fight the long war."

"The United States, its allies and partners, will not win this long war in a great battle of annihilation. Victory can only be achieved through the patient accumulation of quiet successes and the orchestration of all elements of national and international power."

"Long-duration, complex operations involving the U.S. military, other government agencies and international partners will be waged simultaneously in multiple countries around the world, relying on a combination of direct (visible) and indirect (clandestine) approaches."

"Maintaining a long-term, low-visibility presence in many areas of the world where U.S. forces do not traditionally operate will be required."

"In the post-September 11 world, irregular warfare has emerged as the dominant form of warfare confronting the United States, its allies and its partners; accordingly, guidance must account for distributed, long-duration operations, including unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and stabilization and reconstruction operations."

"For the foreseeable future, steady-state operations, including operations as part of a long war against terrorist networks, and associated rotation base and sustainment requirements, will be the main determinant for sizing U.S. forces."

"For example, Operational Availability assessed the availability of forces prior to, during and following major combat operations, as well as to meet routine missions and the increased demands of the long war."

"It is reorganizing its combat and support forces into modular brigade-based units – including brigade combat teams (BCTs) and the support brigades to sustain them – to increase breadth and depth for the long war."

"To win the long war, the Department of Defense must reshape the defense enterprise in ways that better support the warfighter and are appropriate for the threat environment."

"Recent operational experiences highlight capabilities and capacities that the Department must instill in the Total Force to prevail in a long, irregular war while deterring a broad array of challenges."

"The traditional, visible distinction between war and peace is less clear at the start of the 21st century. In a long war, the United States expects to face large and small contingencies at unpredictable intervals. To fight the long war and conduct other future contingency operations, joint force commanders need to have more immediate access to the Total Force. In particular, the Reserve Component must be operationalized, so that select Reservists and units are more accessible and more readily deployable than today."

"Developing broader linguistic capability and cultural understanding is also critical to prevail in the long war and to meet 21st century challenges."

"Supporting the rule of law and building civil societies where they do not exist today, or where they are in their infancy, is fundamental to winning the long war."

"Recognizing that stability, security and transition operations can be critical to the long war on terrorism, the Department issued guidance in 2005 to place stability operations on par with major combat operations within the Department."

"Close cooperation with these partners in the long war on terrorism, as well as in efforts to counter WMD proliferation and other non-traditional threats, ensures the continuing need for these alliances and for improving their capabilities."

"The United States will work to strengthen allied capabilities for the long war and countering WMD."

"Bringing all the elements of U.S. power to bear to win the long war requires overhauling traditional foreign assistance and export control activities and laws."

"In particular, winning the long war requires strengthening the Department’s ability to train and educate current and future foreign military leaders at institutions in the United States."

"Victory in the long war ultimately depends on strategic communication by the United States and its international partners."

"Finally, by emphasizing greater cultural awareness and language skills, the QDR acknowledges that victory in this long war depends on information, perception, and how and what we communicate as much as application of kinetic effects."

"The War on Terrorism – a war of long duration – differs from the kind of conflict for which the Department traditionally prepared."

Quadrennial Defense Review Report 2006

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

George W. Bush [May 24, 2005]

"So, d'ya reckon this is gonna be a long war?"

"Uhn... dunno. Do you?"

"Dunno."

"Yeah."

"Who cares anyway?"

"Yeah. Who cares?"

"Unless we invest in our defence and security, our homelands will be at risk."

Donald Rumsfeld

Public concern over Iran's nuclear program has risen dramatically in the past few months. Today, 27% of Americans cite Iran as the country that represents the greatest danger to the United States. In October, just 9% pointed to Iran as the biggest danger to the U.S., while there was far more concern over Iraq, China and North Korea. Nearly two-thirds (65%) believe that Iran's nuclear program is a major threat to the U.S., placing it on par with North Korea's nuclear program, and far ahead of China's emerging power among possible threats to the United States.

Overwhelming numbers believe that if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons it would likely launch attacks on Israel (72%), and the U.S. or Europe (66%). There is even greater agreement that a nuclear-armed Iran would be likely to provide nuclear weapons to terrorists (82%).

The public is clearer in its view of the potential threat posed by Iran than in what to do about it. More Americans worry that we will wait too long than act too quickly in dealing with Iran's nuclear problem.

The Pew Research Center | Iran a Growing Danger, Bush Gaining on Spy Issue

The second is the representation of the new security paradigm as the "long war", a phrase that has crept into Pentagon-speak over the past two years and is now being used as a pithy successor to the "cold war" as encapsulating the US defence outlook (in London on 6 January, the deputy director of US central command, Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, delivered a speech outlining the US's reconfigured military strategy in what he also called "the long war".)

The term is hugely convenient in that it simplifies everything into a "them and us" global confrontation, awarding the current adversary the same role that the Soviet Union occupied between 1946 and 1991. The implication is that the United States is again engaged in a major confrontation in which it deserves sustained support, and that it is as unacceptable to be "against" the long war as it once was to be "against" the cold war.

Paul Rogers | The world as a battlefield

And who better than to sum up this page than John Pilger?

Next month, Iran is scheduled to shift its petrodollars into a euro-based bourse. The effect on the value of the dollar will be significant, if not, in the long term, disastrous. At present the dollar is, on paper, a worthless currency bearing the burden of a national debt exceeding $8trn and a trade deficit of more than $600bn. The cost of the Iraq adventure alone, according to the Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz, could be $2trn. America's military empire, with its wars and 700-plus bases and limitless intrigues, is funded by creditors in Asia, principally China.

That oil is traded in dollars is critical in maintaining the dollar as the world's reserve currency. What the Bush regime fears is not Iran's nuclear ambitions but the effect of the world's fourth-biggest oil producer and trader breaking the dollar monopoly. Will the world's central banks then begin to shift their reserve holdings and, in effect, dump the dollar? Saddam Hussein was threatening to do the same when he was attacked.

John Pilger | Iran: the next war

Reporting Iran...

...while trusting in Israel. [flash]

Implementation of the NPT Safeguards
Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Resolution adopted on 4 February 2006

The Board of Governors,

(a) Recalling all the resolutions adopted by the Board on Iran's nuclear programme,

(b) Recalling also the Director General’s reports,

(c) Recalling that Article IV of the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons stipulates that nothing in the Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable rights of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of the Treaty,

(d) Commending the Director General and the Secretariat for their professional and impartial efforts to implement the Safeguards Agreement in Iran, to resolve outstanding safeguards issues in Iran and to verify the implementation by Iran of the suspension,

(e) Recalling the Director General’s description of this as a special rendition verification case,

(f) Recalling that in reports referred to above, the Director General noted that after nearly three years of intensive verification activity, the Agency is not yet in a position to clarify some important issues relating to Iran's nuclear programme or to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran,

(g) Recalling Iran’s many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply with its NPT Safeguards Agreement and the absence of confidence that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes resulting from the history of concealment of Iran’s nuclear activities, the nature of those activities and other issues arising from the Agency’s verification of declarations made by Iran since September 2002,

(h) Recalling that the Director General has stated that Iran's full transparency is indispensable and overdue for the Agency to be able to clarify outstanding issues (GOV/2005/67), International Atomic Energy Agency

(i) Recalling the requests of the Agency for Iran's cooperation in following up on reports relating to equipment, materials and activities which have applications in the conventional military area and in the civilian sphere as well as in the nuclear military area (as indicated by the Director General in GOV/2005/67),

(j) Recalling that in November 2005 the Director General reported (GOV/2005/87) that Iran possesses a document related to the procedural requirements for the reduction of UF6 to metal in small quantities, and on the casting and machining of enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms,

(k) Expressing serious concerns about Iran's nuclear programme, and agreeing that an extensive period of confidence-building is required from Iran,

(l) Reaffirming the Board's resolve to continue to work for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue, and

(m) Recognising that a solution to the Iranian issue would contribute to global nonproliferation efforts and to realising the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, including their means of delivery,

1. Underlines that outstanding questions can best be resolved and confidence built in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's programme by Iran responding positively to the calls for confidence building measures which the Board has made on Iran, and in this context deems it necessary for Iran to:

• re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the Agency;
• reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water;
• ratify promptly and implement in full the Additional Protocol;
• pending ratification, continue to act in accordance with the provisions of the Additional Protocol which Iran signed on 18 December 2003;
• implement transparency measures, as requested by the Director General, including in GOV/2005/67, which extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol, and include such access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual use equipment, certain military-owned workshops and research and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations;

2. Requests the Director General to report to the Security Council of the United Nations that these steps are required of Iran by the Board and to report to the Security Council all IAEA reports and resolutions, as adopted, relating to this issue;

3. Expresses serious concern that the Agency is not yet in a position to clarify some important issues relating to Iran's nuclear programme, including the fact that Iran has in its possession a document on the production of uranium metal hemispheres, since, as reported by the Secretariat, this process is related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components; and, noting that the decision to put this document under Agency seal is a positive step, requests Iran to maintain this document under Agency seal and to provide a full copy to the Agency;

4. Deeply regrets that, despite repeated calls from the Board for the maintaining of the suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities which the Board has declared essential to addressing outstanding issues, Iran resumed uranium conversion activities at its Isfahan facility on 8 August 2005 and took steps to resume enrichment activities on 10 January 2006;

5. Calls on Iran to understand that there is a lack of confidence in Iran’s intentions in seeking to develop a fissile material production capability against the background of Iran's record on safeguards as recorded in previous Resolutions, and outstanding issues; and to reconsider its position in relation to confidence-building measures, which are voluntary, and non legally binding, and to adopt a constructive approach in relation to negotiations that can result in increased confidence;

6. Requests Iran to extend full and prompt cooperation to the Agency, which the Director General deems indispensable and overdue, and in particular to help the Agency clarify possible activities which could have a military nuclear dimension;

7. Underlines that the Agency’s work on verifying Iran’s declarations is ongoing and requests the Director General to continue with his efforts to implement the Agency's Safeguards Agreement with Iran, to implement the Additional Protocol to that Agreement pending its entry into force, with a view to providing credible assurances regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and to pursue additional transparency measures required for the Agency to be able to resolve outstanding issues and reconstruct the history and nature of all aspects of Iran's past nuclear activities;

8. Requests the Director General to report on the implementation of this and previous resolutions to the next regular session of the Board, for its consideration, and immediately thereafter to convey, together with any Resolution from the March Board, that report to the Security Council; and

9. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

Derestricted 4 February 2006

Okay, so we all know about Israel. Don't we? Even so, on January 5, 2006 the Guardian posed a question, the answer to which would make this business so much easier on all of us. George Bush insists that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. So why, six years ago, did the CIA give the Iranians blueprints to build a bomb?

Yeah, that's just the headline. Now, what about some answers? None? Okay, let's move this story along, folks. The dollar's tied to oil. Like Iraq, Iran intends selling oil in Euros. Worse, the Iranian Oil Bourse opens March 23, 2006. The dollar, the U.S. and, of course, Israel, will soon be worthless, hence the West's willingness to go to war. Any comment? No? Nothing? Umm...

Experts say Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, but the Jewish state neither acknowledges nor denies having such a program.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday lauded the IAEA's decision, saying it was now charged to "ultimately exact a very heavy price from Iran if it persists with these plans and tries to enrich fuel so it can realize its option to build non-conventional weapons."

Mark Regev, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Israel does not see a linkage in the decision between the Iranian nuclear program and Israel.

Houston Chronicle | Israel Hails Decision to Report Iran

The Passion...

Danish Muslim groups, some of which were responsible for publicising the cartoons in the first place, have since tried to calm the furore. Although neither Jyllands-Posten and Mr Rasmussen have apologised for printing the images, prominent imams in Copenhagen said yesterday they were shocked by the extent of the protests, which have let to widespread boycotts of Danish goods across the Middle East.

The Times | Six newspapers reprint Muhammad cartoons

While one must commend such a unified Arab and Muslim stance - hoping that it would remain confined to legitimate forms of protest - one cannot help but wonder: Where was such collectiveness when it was needed most?

This is not to suggest that transgression on a people's beliefs - any people and any belief - should be taken lightly. However, if Arabs can be so efficient in organizing such popular (and effective) campaigns that use economic, political and diplomatic leverage to extract concessions, then why the utter failure to carry out such campaigns protesting the US war on Iraq, its unconditional support of Israel and its condescending foreign policy and grand democracy charades it wishes to impose on everyone?

Asia Times | Punishing Denmark, the wrong enemy

Professor Tim Jensen, a prominent Danish theologian, said the caricatures should not be published, warning the newspaper "It will offend Muslims and only cause pointless provocation." A lecturer at South Denmark University, Mr. Jensen summarized his answer to Zaman regarding the Jyllands Posten newspaper: "Surely, Denmark has freedom of press, but pictures of the Prophet Mohammed have never existed throughout history. Any picture or caricature to be published will offend Muslims deeply. It would be provocation in a climate where Islam and Muslims are already in the limelight. It’s like pouring gas on the fire."

Zaman | Expert Warnings About Cartoons Went Unheeded

Context matters very much in the case of the cartoons of Muhammad too. It is one thing to assert the right to publish an image of the prophet. As long as that is not illegal - and not even the government's amended religious hatred bill makes it so - then that right undoubtedly exists. But it is another thing to put that right to the test, especially when to do so inevitably causes offence to many Muslims and, even more so, when there is currently such a powerful need to craft a more inclusive public culture which can embrace them and their faith. That is why the defiant republication of the cartoons in some parts of Europe (some of them with far less good histories of intercommunal relations than this country) is more questionable than it may appear at first sight.

Guardian | Cartoons and their context

Should a right-wing Danish newspaper have carried the derisive images of Muhammad? No. Should other newspapers have repeated them and the BBC teasingly “flashed” them to prove its free-speech virility? No. Should governments apologise for them or ban them from repeating the offence? No, but that is not the issue.

A newspaper is not a monastery, its mind blind to the world and deaf to reaction. Every inch of published print reflects the views of its writers and the judgment of its editors. Every day newspapers decide on the balance of boldness, offence, taste, discretion and recklessness. They must decide who is to be allowed a voice and who not. They are curbed by libel laws, common decency and their own sense of what is acceptable to readers. Speech is free only on a mountain top; all else is editing.

Simon Jenkins | These cartoons don't defend free speech, they threaten it

A South African court has banned the publication of controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in the country's newspapers at the request of a Muslim organisation to cries of censorship from the media.

In a ruling issued late Friday, Johannesburg's high court banned main press groups from publishing the cartoons which since appearing in European newspapers have caused uproar in the Muslim world, Ebrahim Bham, the spokesman of the Council of Muslim Theologians said.

African News Dimension | South Africa : No Prophet Mohammed cartoons

Now that last one is just plain dumb. It'll be overturned. After President Mbeki telephoned his support to President Ahmadinejad, South Africa rightly sided with Iran at the highly theatrical IAEA meeting by refusing to support the farcical resolution referring that country to the UNSC. Support for Iran is overwhelming in this country, but it should not translate to misusing the law to fight provocation—as is the case with this high court ruling.

Cuba, Syria and Venezuela, which all have disputes with the United States, voted against it, while Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa abstained.

Deutsche Welle | IAEA Overwhelmingly Votes to Send Iran to UN Security Council

As suspected, and claimed on this blog over the weekend, the inflammatory anti-Muslim cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten were a deliberate provocation designed to outrage and incite Muslims and thus engender support in Europe and America for the manufactured "clash of civilizations" engineered by the Straussian neocons. As Christopher Bollyn writes for the American Free Press, the neocon operative behind the cartoon scheme is Flemming Rose, cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, who has "has clear ties to the Zionist Neo-Cons." Rose "traveled to Philadelphia in October 2004 to visit Daniel Pipes, the Neo-Con ideologue who says the only path to Middle East peace will come through a total Israeli military victory. Rose then penned a positive article about Pipes, who compares ‘militant Islam’ with fascism and communism," Bollyn reveals.

Kurt Nimmo | Flemming Rose and the Straussian Art of Provocation

The State of the Union

Reduces dependencies by up to 75 percent...

"US airplanes ... launched a raid on a village in near Peshawar after Eid al-Adha in which eighteen Muslim men, women and children were killed in what they call the war against terror."

"They said this was intended to kill myself and four brothers but now the whole world has discovered their lies and of their ruin and of their savagery in their war against Islam and Muslims."

"Butcher of Washington, you are not only defeated and a liar, but also a failure. You are a curse on your own nation."

"Bush, do you know where to find me? I am among the masses of Muslims, rejoicing in their support, their attention, their generosity, their protection and their participation in jihad until we conquer you with the help and power of God."

"My second message is to the American people, who are drowning in illusions. I tell you that Bush and his gang are shedding your blood and wasting your money in frustrated adventures."

"The Lion of Islam, Shaikh Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, offered you a decent exit from your dilemma. But your leaders, who are keen to accumulate wealth, insist on throwing you in battles and killing your souls in Iraq and Afghanistan and - God willing - on your own land."

"Your leaders responded to the initiative of Shaikh Osama, may God protect him, by saying they don't negotiate with terrorists and that they are winning the war on terror. I tell them: You liars, greedy war mongers, who is pulling out from Iraq and Afghanistan? Us or you? Whose soldiers are committing suicide because of despair? Us or you?"

"You, American mother, if the Pentagon calls to tell you that your son is coming home in a coffin, then remember George Bush. And you, British wife, if the Defence Department calls you to say that your husband is returning crippled and burnt, remember Tony Blair."

Al-Qaida Deputy Leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri

Biko Lives...

Whose weapon?

There's so many different worlds | So many different suns | And we have just one world | But we live in different ones.

Dire Straits | Brothers in Arms

My father, who professed himself a colonial, used to mutter of the First World: "Too much information; too little knowledge, and bugger-all wisdom." Despite his hard-wired European cultural heritage (the maxim derives from Eliot), he was an African at heart. In many ways, his cultural and visceral outlook replicated itself in me through the carrier DNA of his open-source culture. Although European, I am African. Being African, I'm happy with irony, ambiguity and paradox.

Steve Biko's above statement makes perfect sense to me.

Last Sunday evening, we dropped my youngest daughter off at the Lentegeur Adolescent Unit (LAU) in Mitchell's Plain on the Cape Flats. Fighting demons common to most teenagers, Cathryn stays at LAU during the week and comes home on weekends. An academic training facility, the LAU is the second largest adolescent psychiatric unit in South Africa. It caters for five adolescents.

And thereby hangs a tale involving a scurrilous local publication going by the name of Fair Lady [click link for article abstract], to which I have referred somewhat disparagingly in the past.

Because "Violet" is our daughter's friend and has, for up to six weeks, stayed with us, the article [Hormones, highs and hangovers] infers much that is way out of line. It also omits to mention all that is good, sensitive, and remarkably intelligent about our admittedly street-wise "Violet".

Shown exiting a Cape Town club, she and her boyfriend scored a couple of sandwiches and milkshakes out of their exploitation; seeminly designed purely to terrify white southern suburbs' mothers rather than get them to listen to their kids. Psychologists with whom she's had contact, other adults, family, interested school teachers, friends and, most importantly, her musician boyfriend shed no light on V's plight or the up side to this creative young girl's life.

Through its failure to accentuate—or elaborate on—the role adults play in creating such realities, the article loses the plot altogether. Possible answers to problems being experienced by kids, not written off with a 'bad prognosis' as 'V' has been, lie uncomfortably close to home, most often within the 'shocked' reader. There's very little wrong with our kids ('V' comes out of this a 'survivor'), but an examination of their criminal neglect by often clueless and usually overly wealthy parents would lead us to some hard answers worth reporting.

It's a shabby article.

We drove home towards the mountain in moderate traffic, swooshing along the national road past windswept miles of informal housing, shacks, and shanties built one on top of the other out of wood, tin, and plastic. Fire-blackened concrete barriers prevent cows, goats, horses, dogs, kids and idiots straying across the road, and mesh-covered pedestrian bridges stop rocks and other objects being lobbed at passing cars.

It's barren, featureless dune country, separating the Table Mountain granite outcrop of the Cape Peninsula from the Malmesbury shale of the great African continent. For most Capetonians, it's home.

A youngster of about nineteen was walking towards Cape Town along the large, concrete 'blast-barrier' separating inbound and outbound traffic. He was walking unconcernedly; ambling towards the city. He was naked. In our instant of passing, he showed no distress or concern. Unpainted and wearing no loincloth, he wasn't an abakwethu, or initiate. He was merely walking to Cape Town and, although I've remembered him, I've felt little concern for him. He probably arrived, unharmed, at his destination.

The contradiction inherent in my daughter finding one of five places at a state hospital in a city of millions, where teenagers wander the streets naked or drugged or raped or beaten, does not puzzle me. What does puzzle me is our apparent need for institutions qualifying other youngsters in social work, psychology, psychiatry, etc. in a sea of deprivation, poverty, and dire need.

For some reason—probably five years' exposure to his writing, I've a feeling my Spiritual Guide and Mentor Father Christopher (FC) and RageBoy would feel quite at home in Africa. Lacking Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and cheap telecoms, I'm not so sure about Chris Locke. But, as Father Christopher's stenographer and RB's batman, Locke has little choice in the matter. It is FC who is behind most of the lucid, revelatory prose emanating from the Jesus Bunker in Boulder, so we'll stick with him.

In his post on net² (submitted by Locke), FC states: "I hope my title slug above [Biko Lives] is warranted and that the code is getting down to the people who need it most and know best what to do with it."

He's a bugger, eh? He always knows which buttons to push and he always sets me to thinking (which explains his exalted status from Beijing to Brazil). And, usually, much like the man, the answers to his unstated questions comprise many, often paradoxical, but always interesting and thought-provoking parts. For the first part, I've never known FC to be a minor-league slugger. His evocation of Peter Gabriel's most beautiful song and, especially, the lyrics "Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja, | The man is dead | The man is dead" give the lie to any notion of throwaway lines.

Quoting Enoch Sontonga's Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, adopted by the ANC in 1925 to close its meetings and as our national anthem in 1994, the hymn's exhortation to the Spirit ensures Biko's survival—despite the imperialism of two centuries being neatly but unobtrusively ensconced in its words. Gabriel too, incorporates ambiguity. "Come Spirit. Take the man, for he is dead?" Possibly, but I think not. "Come Spirit. This guy's had it. It's your turn now," is more like it.

In short, and more often in frustration and anger than resignation and submission, Biko lives.

However, and this is where FC is always at his most probing, whether Biko's legacy computes to a compatibility with or need for open source or proprietary software leads to some interesting questions. And to address them, we need to view Africa from afar. We've been blessed with many great leaders, before and since Steve Biko's time. In an excellent overview of the 20th Century, Gamal Nkrumah summarizes Africa's struggle to find itself. His prognosis, based on Mandela being the only great African leader to ring in the 21st Century, is undeservedly bleak and can be ignored.

However, forecasting a forbidding future, he begs a response. Riding out the storms of neoliberal economic policies foisted on newly independent countries by new and insidious imperial tools such as the IMF, World Bank, G8 and World Economic Forum necessitates a low profile. Thabo Mbeki, for his leadership of South Africa and the direction he gives other African countries, is hugely undervalued. If we need to amend the constitution to give the man and his team a third term, why not?

See the South African president's must-read blog entry on Hamas's election victory.

There's good reason for my buddy Thomas P.M. Barnett painting South Africa into the functioning Core of the Pentagon's New Map while relegating the rest of the continent to the dysfunctional Gap. Harnessing a superficial, paper-thin, broadcast media-friendly ideation of South Africa superimposed on harsh, unforgiving and incomprehensible realities, the new imperialists see the country as a springboard to Africa's untapped wealth.

Well, as they say, fuck 'em. We're busy. Mbeki and the ANC, sharing the sentiment, are playing it down the middle and balance external, predominantly economic threats against internal needs with finesse and élan.

Barnett and his neocon crazies will not have their way with us. To mangle Biko's statement: our mind is the most powerful weapon you have in your hands. Don't mess with it.

Besides Biko stands the ghost of Chris Hani, a man for these times. Centuries of interaction with our Arabic cousins have taught us the lessons of time and its tides. Despite the lingering legacies of negritude and xenophobia (racism is a nuisance we can deal with), this appreciation of the long term has led to a form of innate, continental 'consensus socialism'. It has and continues to serve us well.

Not for nothing can we absolve ourselves of crimes committed over the past two hundred years against the environment and the future.

An aside on racism. Local government elections are under way. The Democratic Alliance (the residue of formerly white parties and their collaborators) has strung the streets of Cape Town and its suburbs and townships with election posters shouting "End ANC Racism" and "Take Back Your City". Hah! Were the ANC to do the same, I've no doubt as to how DA supporters would respond.

Hani was particularly well suited to reading and responding to Western attempts to subvert and subdue African liberation movements for short-term economic gain. Why does his spirit and that of Biko live on? Because both men were expressions of the people they represented. Just as the elegant, eloquent calls for calm issued by Tokyo Sexwale (deployed with Cyril Ramaphosa to the private sector) in the wake of Hani's assassination reflected the disciplined demeanour of a bereaved country, so Africa's myriad outstanding leaders mirror their people.

Africa is a chameleon. We'll be whatever you wish us to be but, despite poverty, violence, AIDS, exploitation, unbelievable income disparities and the empty dreams of our present captains of commerce, we'll remain true to ourselves.

Well, most of us. Denied a socialist regime and a severe but necessary redistribution of wealth, the predominantly white private sector was the big winner in 1994 and continues to impose its will on and flaunt its lifestyle at the majority. But, while we pander to its whims, its power is waning. With China offering far better deals on oil, only a small percentage of white businesses, subject to their market forces, will last. And it's here, where we make our choices, that we can discern the future of computing in Africa.

And it's here too, that we should not forget the runners-up in the '94 elections, the NGOs. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) exist to serve ordinary South Africans where the state is unable to. Many do a remarkable and, all too often, unsung job. On the downside, many exist to give employment—frequently allocating the top slots to whites—to those who would otherwise be unemployable. State policy is, supposedly, given effect by these institutions. However, with the advent of democracy, everybody suddenly became a consultant and most consultants, charging exorbitant fees, came from the NGO sector.

These people hindered, rather than helped, solve identified problems; for example, illiteracy. The problem's hardly been dented, let alone addressed. Large commercial publishing houses, out of touch with social realities, employed literacy consultants to produce elaborate literacy packs designed solely for their shareholders' benefit. The packs might as well have been PCs. These days, there are far fewer such people about. Sadly though, we're now saddled with convention organizers and call centres.

While you (reading this) and I use a computer to communicate, most people need something faster, cheaper, better. (Hmm... we need Jeneane Sessum.) Denied fat, sedentary lifestyles and consumption-friendly disposable mentalities, 82 million Africans use a cell phone. Eh? Yeah. Kofi Annan hasn't a clue. The other half of the world just made a phone call. Most TV viewers cackled at the cell phone advertisement showing the ubiquitous beggar at the intersection losing his handout because he chose to answer his cell phone. I didn't. Vodacom and MTN deal in reality and big bucks. And the reality is that very few Africans own computers and even fewer are linked to the Internet or Web. If a couple of million put the Web to effective use, it's a lot. Generally, we don't need computers, software, WiFi, etc.

Whatever for? Large, expensive and clumsy, networks demand space, time, security, electricity and telephone lines. On a continent where society doesn't place too high a priority on such things, they're simply impractical. When school kids have few teachers, fewer books, no doors, windows, toilets, power points, phones and roofs in their educational institutions, what price computers? When rape, drunkenness, violence, prostitution, gangsterism and drugs are risk-free schoolyard activities, what chance their survival? Nada, zippo, zilch.

When hardware doesn't stand a chance, neither open source nor proprietary software enter the equation.

We've never really had a national education system. Too much division. Too much history. Another Western song to make it big in South Africa was Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. "We don't need no education | We don't need no thought control." It became the anthem of school kids countrywide during the '84 riots. The state's response? Shoot the kids and ban the song. Together with Jesus Christ Superstar, the Beatles, Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson and, believe it or not, Anna Sewell's Black Beauty. Yeah, the story of the horse.

Many will disagree with me when I say there's little room in Africa for computing as we know it. To them, I say "Go read the Starfish Story." I share its sentiment. Do what you can. Think global, act local, etc. Your efforts are not in vain. Hell, as one who likes to write, cogitate and communicate, I don't understand our inability to link the continent to the Net. But at what price do we save the few and leave the rest behind?

Let's face it. The schools into which computer classrooms have been introduced; where open source or proprietary software are used, are the bright, shining exceptions that light our deluded fantasies of First World emulation. Like the psychiatric facility existing for the staff rather than the patients, these experiments in proliferating computers baffle me. It just ain't on. Like the formal-sector businesses that exist to entrench the wealth of our padrone class at the cost of the many, proprietary and open source code are more trouble than they're worth.

Computers and the code are "...getting down to [...] people who [...] know best what to do with it." But it's not getting to the people. And whether they need it most (or at all) is moot. Either way, most are denied it or don't want it. They have better things to do. Like survive.

Given that the spirit of Biko lives, let me put it this way. An oral tradition ensures Africans are natural communicators. If the Web were people, it would be us. Every type of network is evident in every city, village, and settlement. As social beings, we're suckers for tools facilitating communication. But, given our environment and living standard, pay-as-you-go cell phones make far more sense and are way more functional than PCs.

Though many might tell you otherwise, I'll go so far as to stating that this will be the case in any country or on any continent where the Golby Acid Test Ratio (I studied economics last night) is greater than .75. Okay, I'll explain. In any country where the unemployment rate comes close to matching or exceeds its citizens' life expectancy, I reckon any type of hard or software doesn't stand a chance of gaining wide acceptance or adoption.

The Golby Acid Test Ratio for South Africa, using the broad definition of unemployment, is .96. According to the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, unemployment rose to 41 percent between 1995 and 2003. Life expectancy stands at 43. So the cell phone companies look set to continue reducing computing's significance to insignificance and irrelevance for some time to come. Or until we put open source onto affordable cell phones, at least.

I first heard Peter Gabriel's song, banned in South Africa, long after it was written; in about 1983. It was the right time for me to hear it, five years after Biko's brutal murder. It put into context the rage we, as white kids living in a legally segregated society, carried to our often ignorant but always passionate protests of a system denying our common humanity. During the white elections two months after Biko's death, Minister of Police, Jimmy "It leaves me cold" Kruger came down to Cape Town's working-class Maitland constituency to back a fresh-faced National Party candidate, Kent Durr.

Hundreds of predominantly English-speaking youngsters, mostly students up at UCT, out-manoeuvred the party faithful to pack the hall. We gave Kruger hell. Following the beat of a guy banging his motorcycle helmet against the wall, we did the usual, singing ridiculous songs, i.e. 'We Shall Overcome' (what freedom songs could we have known?) and chanting "You killed Biko." Drowned by the uproar, Kruger could not speak, called us "...a bunch of hairybacks pumped up by [our] lecturers and sent to disrupt this meeting", and the few security leatherfaces accompanying him could not handle the mob. They dragged out a kid who tore up his conscription card, but released him almost immediately.

Kent Durr won his seat by a landslide. Today, the U.S. beats a similar path towards Tehran.

All South Africans had been made intensely aware of the circumstances attending Biko's death by the media's publication of transcripts of the official commission of inquiry set up to whitewash his demise. Appearing for the Biko family, Sir Sydney Kentridge QC flayed the state witnesses, fully exposing the unthinking, mindless brutality of his interrogators and murderers, and the state for which they worked. Kentridge, as deserving of praise as Advocate George Bizos, is too seldom mentioned in Biko's biographies, attention being given instead to the medical profession's exculpation of those supposedly attending him.

In many ways, Kentridge was the Spirit invoked by Gabriel, for he gave Biko's work and philosophy a far wider audience than it would have otherwise enjoyed.

"It was the most extraordinary feat of advocacy I have ever seen," said Marcel Berlins, who covered the case for the Times. Sir Sydney managed to cross-examine the witnesses in Afrikaans while, almost simultaneously, summarising their evidence in English for the benefit of the world's press who were in attendance. His skill played a major part in exposing the horrific way in which Biko had been treated by the authorities, both police and medical, although the initial verdict returned was one of accidental death. more....

This is a long, circuitous rumination on Chris Locke's short post, but it highlights for me, and perhaps for you, how the legacy of Biko illustrates an inversion of my father's old maxim. Because we do not have the wherewithal to equip ourselves with the code needed to fully exploit the digital age, we face a paradox.

In Africa, we have bugger-all information and too little knowledge. But this seeming poverty is more than offset by millions of cell phones and an abundance of wisdom. In a sense, Steve Biko's greatest legacy is that most of us now live Biko lives.

Do you remember when we were in Africa?

The Doors | Wild Child

Note: This reflection on Chris's entry for net² has been a while in the writing. I've sinusitis, a headache, aches and pains; perhaps symptomatic of something far uglier than its constituent parts, I shall defer to the knowledge of doctors trained in Western medicine, the use of needles and the analysis of blood. Perhaps it's airconditioning, perhaps cancer. Perhaps I'm getting old. Dare I wear my trousers rolled? Does it matter?

When Smoking Kills...

From a distance... Cape Town 26-27 January, 2006

Up in smoke | That's where my money goes | In my lungs | And sometimes up my nose | When troubled times | Begin to bother me | I take a toke | And all my cares | Go up in smoke.

"Why might a plane continue to emit a high-pitched whine after landing at Cape Town International?"

"I dunno. The pilot left the engines on?"

"Nah. He turned them off."

"Fuck, I dunno then. Why might a plane continue to emit a high-pitched whine after landing at Cape Town International?"

"It's full of British tourists."

Ho ho ho. Or so 36-year old travelling Brit, Anthony Cooper, might have thought. Deciding to get even, he allegedly used a cigarette butt to set fire to the world's most distinctive landmark and killed a 65-year old hiker.

Apparently adding insult to injury, Magistrate Ingrid Freitag let the full-time car salesman and part-time tour-orrist from Brighton have his way with her. She released him on R3,000.00 bail—£277.50. Given former brother-in-law Jacques Freitag's alleged behaviour of late (and coincidental court appearance today), it might appear that she wanted to maintain a profile as low as that presumably now sought by suspected arsonist Cooper.

But all is not as it seems. I know Ingrid; she is not that kind of girl and I'd not impugn her professionalism. The concept of equality before the law does not take globalisation and the currency exchange markets into account. Were I to earn the same as a Brighton car salesman, I'd be as happy as a pig in shit.



Up in smoke | Donde todos es mi rey | There are no signs | Que dice no fumer | So I roll un "bomber" | Y me doy, un buen toke-ay | Y despues I choke | Y todos mis cares | Go up in smoke | Come on let's go get high.

Utimately, though, the joke's on the butt-flicking Englishman. Not only was his victim a 65-year old fellow British tourist; he got to spend a night in a South African holding cell—an experience MasterCard might describe as priceless. Nailed by Hoeriekwaggo (Table Mountain) trail guide, Donovan Lyimo, who probably earns less than £100.00 a month, Cooper will have to skulk about a while longer before once more facing Ingrid and charges of arson and culpable homicide.

And who knows? If found guilty of flaming Table Mountain, Lion's Head and Signal Hill, destroying half the world's silver tree proteas leucadendron argenteum, torching several houses and cars and, tragically, causing the needless death of an elderly hiker enjoying a summer-afternoon walk, the hapless Pom could ultimately marry a member of the 28s gang in a private ceremony held in the shadow of the mountain at Pollsmoor Prison.



The Portfolio Committee did not visit the Admissions Centre, which holds all adult offenders. This Centre is the most overcrowded in Pollsmoor. It has the capacity to hold 1 619 adult offenders and currently accommodates 3 989 adult offenders.

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services on Visit to Pollsmoor Juvenile Detention Centres on 15 October 2004

Hell, anything's possible. It ain't over till it's over. He might even give up smoking.

Up in smoke | That's where I wanna be | 'Cause when I'm high | The world below | Don't bother me | When life begins | To be one long | And dangerous road | I take a toke | And all my cares | Go up in smoke.

Cheech and Chong | Up in Smoke

Thank you to the fire fighters, chopper pilots, tender crews, medics, volunteers, parks staff, 567 Cape Talk (which, in a day, has raised R1.4 million in disaster relief), and the supportive Cape Town public for doing so much to limit the damage caused by fire.