Letter Never Sent

The New York Times had an article today about the number of supposed dead Al Quaeda and Taliban. The military suggests they killed 800 or so ‘terrorists’. Of course, with government death toll assessments you must follow a few rules:

1. If the government wants a higher death toll (ie. WTC casualties, pulped terrorists) perform the following calculation: Take their estimated number and divide by 3 then subtract 150 from that.
2. If they want lower numbers multiply their estimate by ten.

From the Times article:

At the start of the week, the Pentagon estimate listed the confirmed number of dead Arab, Chechen and other fighters for Al Qaeda at 517. Another 250 were believed to have been killed, but the deaths were listed as unconfirmed. By today, the total estimate had risen above 800, according to one official.

“Those numbers are all extremely fuzzy,” said one senior military officer.

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It’s the new COINTELPRO. The ACLU is shedding light on the Denver Police Department for keeping secret logs and files on local activists and protest groups. Who do the police really work for? I think this sheds light on the harsh reality that police are not there to ‘protect and to serve’. This is a very troubling article. I’m willing to bet this is practiced by police departments across the country.

The Bush administration has reiterated its offer to grease the palms of reluctant allies. It needs countries to support their plans for worldwide dominion through the ‘war against terror’. Since most people outside of the United States do not support this war the government has been out making the rounds trying to buy support.

The payoffs are termed assistance and aid. I’m glad to see my hard earned money is at work enslaving the world. Bush doing his best Big Brother impression added:

Today he offered only a paragraph of solace to the victims’ families, saying that “each day brings new pain, each day requires new courage,” yet “your grace and strength have been an example to our nation.” Americans, he added, “will not forget the lives that were taken, and the justice their death requires.”

Then he quickly moved on to describe the second phase of the war against terrorism, which he defined as “a sustained campaign to deny sanctuary to terrorists who would threaten our citizens from anywhere in the world.” In Afghanistan, he said, “hundreds of trained killers are now dead” as a battle in the Shah-i- Kot Mountains continues.


(Aren’t American military personnel trained killers too?)


“And we’re winning,” Mr. Bush said. “Yet it will not be the last battle in Afghanistan, and there will be other battles beyond that nation.”

The American fuhrer has again reminded the rest of the world that if you are not with us you are against us.

In this piece for the BBC, “‘No neutrality’, warns Bush”. In this same speech Bush promises payoffs to countries who join his ‘coalition’. This is how they get things done with the carrot and the stick. On the one hand, he makes the veiled suggestion that you do what we say or you are with the terrorists and then he offers bribes to governments who cooperate. I need to dust off my Machiavelli so I can keep up with these snakes.

“The US encourages and expects governments everywhere to help remove the terrorist parasites that threaten their own countries and the peace of the world,” he said.

“If governments need training or resources America will help.”

The US military is spending wasting more money developing battlefield robots. Haven’t they seen The Terminator? Those who are ignorant of film history are doomed to repeat it. From the article on the ‘men of steel’:

The new battle network, known as “Future Combat Systems”, will enable sophisticated weapons to be deployed close to enemy lines with a minimum risk of casualties.

A spokesman for the Pentagon’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency said: “The aim is to be able to do everything you would ever need to do on the battlefield, using a combination of manned and unmanned systems. They would be able to fire at things, defend themselves, do reconnaissance and find targets.”

These weapons also have the nice feature of lacking any conscience or sense of morality. How convenient. There will be some good ways to fight these things, they will have to be controlled by human operators probably through radio or satellite transmissions. All you would need to do is to interrupt that link and these would be useless. I wonder how many countries are developing HERF guns and EMP tech to disable electronics. Also, you could do something like have a directed EMP beam or laser that could knock out communications satellites. Or, better yet, these satellites could be infilitrated somehow. It is all very exciting and scary. I am remined of that Simpsons episode (The Secret War of Lisa Simpson) where Lisa and Bart graduate from military school. At their graduation the commandant gives this speech:

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.
They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall
mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by
small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is
clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you.

That’s about what the average person in the military does these days. Scrape paint, polish something, clean things, and other jobs you couldn’t hire anyone to do without having them indentured for four years. You also get the added bonus of completely ruining your life for at least several years. Even our current and last president had no interest in serving for the military.