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C IM B B JtT IW G Ä ¡ » r C & B B ^ l M ^ 6 street r o o tg lB **r W ’W Education * Dialogue ♦ Independence BOOK REVIEW BY SOUP CAN SAM S T A FF P S Y C H IC Three templates for 21st century warfare BY JAY THIEMEYER Because McCrystal is a warrior’s warrior, bis focus, which is acute and fixed, is Oil t the same time the new president of imposing the most horrific damage on the General Motors is in Cairo making enemy as his resources can provide. And if overtures to the Muslim world and the suspected militants are hiding among attempting to move us away from the OK civilians, that’s regrettable but the price you Corral approach of his predecessor, the pay to win. Last one Taliban is feeding growing anger among standing, and th a t Pakistanis and Afghans resulting from U.S. “Wired for War” is drone-directed bombing of civilians. the latest book by Oil May 4, U.S. drones directed an aerial P.W. Singer. He is attack on suspected militants’in a village author of .the notable north of Kandahar. The estimates vary but “Children at War,” dozens died. The militants had fled. which anticipated the Drone warfare is art industrious spate of child soldiers development similar in its suddenness to from Africa — who the emergence of incorporated mercenaries wrote memoirs and were momentarily during the Bush regime. They are the touted on shows such critical ingrediertt in a remote-control war Robotics Revolution as Oprah’s — and orchestrated in Arizona and already “Corporate Warriors” infamous for devastating civilian and Conflict in the which anticipated concentrations in search of “suspected 21st Century" by militants.” Drones are part of the machinery PW Singer, Penguin, Jeremy SeahiU’s exhaustive study of that would be overseen by Lt. Gen. Stanley * 2009, $29.95 : Blackwater arid now McCrystal. Currently undergoing Senate TripleCanopy. He’s review, his notoriety in unrelenting special young, he’s ops and interrogations that followed Donald conservative, he’s a fellow at Brookings, but Rumsfeld’s infamous memo without he’s well worth reading. Templates to study disagreement, are what he’s famed for. the problems of our tim es. His nomination by our peace-loving . Once again he sets the stage for the next , president comes with contradictions: some quantum leap, in war-making. Unmanned of which were addressed by the senators. Predators and Reapers can call down hell Notably, the May 4 slaughter, when for the stranger. No mercy, no fear...no oversight provisions for drones were not humans from our side die, and the ones . followed. And those dozens of invisible atomized, we’ll never know. people whom we as taxpayers and citizens Gen. McCrystal is important for how he who fund the war machine will never know fits into this new concentrated war. So and for the vast bulk of us will never even much for hearts and minds. Much easier to be aware ofrthat is, if we only read the -corporatei-uispired diversion which.. ----------- qSuotifee and ofibupbapize: what was the. common take on Iraqis? Tfre one prompted constitutes opr news these days. S to make killing them a matter of automatic We have clearly entered^ new era of response? That they wipe their asses with conducting war. How soon before the pext their hands...they aren’t even human. . step of sci-fi becomes the norm, which They deserve what they g et And if Arthur C. Clarke described in “Dial F for civilians are in the way... Frankenstein,” when our A.I. creations turn But this is an old on us and shuck us like a nagging foot story. “Bombing fungus? ’ Civilians” by Marilyn What is worrisome is how McCrystal Young and Yuki answered the concerns about collateral Tanaka traces the damage voiced by the senators. It was all evolution from the about damage Control. Trying to put the C ÏV ÎL W first incendiaries best face on i t Maintain the military’s dropped from hot-air “credibility.” balloons in the 18th Collateral damage, he said, was century to drones. gj unavoidable and regrettable and we will do They don’t address *- better in the future. And there will be many, "Bombing Civilians" drones but they many future ops.under McCrystal. He embodies the Rumsfeld approach. Theirs by Marilyn Young* &’ provide a great lead- up. die, ours don’t. Keep it simple, stupid. Yuki Tanaka, The This is a collection So,: the fat, dumb and happy citizens New Press, of articles on critical ; playing their games online won’t protest but little-publicized 2009,$30.00 funding our war machine. And the YouTube points of recent wars. war advances on schedule. C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R B Gem ini (M ay 22-June 22) Cover more territory when you walk. And continue walking into the night shift. Cancer (June 23-July 23) Good things come over the course of time. Develop your soul and so forth. Leo (July 24-A ug. 23) There are places you can find friends, there are places you can find somesun. Discover where the riches are. J £ V irgo (A ug. 24-Sept. 23) If you understand your mission in life and the contents of your personality, your path will become easy. ’ Libra (Sept. 24-Oct. 23) Say hello, open doors. When someone asks a question, speak what you'know, not what you think. Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) If you want to make a whole lot of money in a short amount of time get lots of sleep the night before. Sagittarius (Nov. 23-Dec. 22) Good organization and good management allows you to meet good people where you least expect it. Capricorn (Dec. 23-Jan. 19) All w a d u riU - no play makes it tough to get with the opposite sex. Which is something you, Cappy, need bad right now. A q uariu s (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) You're reaching your seasonal apex, with an eye tow ard fall. This year, promise to bask in the sun a few minutes longer, listen to the birds a little more closely, and stop hitting the bottle before 3. Pisces (Feb. 20-M arch 20) When you're moons stop spinning and your house is in order, that's when the love of your life, will drop by and perhaps then, you'll realize that there was more to life all along. Let go of the infatuation. A ries (M arch 21-April 19). Cool your jets. You don't have a monopoly on judgment, BOMBING The experience of the German Heimat at j the hands of unrelenting U:S. and British carpet-bombing during World War h, for . instance.-British “humane” bombing in Iraq between Desert Storm ahd Iraqi Freedom. Or, as one article asks: “Were the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?” And with like salience, several concluding articles look at the current legal framework to address war crimes and the ongoing refinement of what constitutes a “just war.” When you hone in on it, what qualifies an act of war as criminal? It gets somewhat abstruse, as one would expect, but only rarely. And the arguments and clarifications are worth following. How can the Israelis justify what they did in Gaza? How can we justify 700 civilian casualties in targeting 14 “militants” in AfPak? Generally these case studies are easy to WAS ISMAtfriFW. follow and compelling. Just a note.about an interesting book . in its own right. The long-lost memoir of the poet/ambulance driver James. Neugass, about the "War is Beautiful: Franco war of the An Ambulance 1930s, His memoir is Driver in the Spanish the real thing. He Civil War" by James kept a diary during Neugass, edited by his time in Spain, recording everything Peter N Carroll and at the moment it Peter Glazer, with happened. Included the Abraham are items. Jike hi§ , s "Lincoln Brigade Archives. The New Press, 2009, $26.95 tak e o n th a t o th e r you just enjoy it more than others. Meditation will do you good this month. Taurus (April 20-M ay 21) The path less traveled is always a popular choice, but a new set o f eyes on common ground can extract just as much truth for world. Look upon every path with new eyes this - ambulance driver, Ernest Hemingway, who passed Neugass and crew in his sedan, while they were getting their vehicle out of the mud. Nice take, that. There is nothing remote about Neugass’s record. These three books provide good perspective; and as I say, templates for all that will come after. So what will the robots bring us? What Richard Brautigan described as “machines of loving grace?” Or singularian A.I., robots who are self-aware, can decide on their own inspiration and eventually will decide to slough their creators? Their gods must die? The robots will have lost any use for us? That is, if the decisions made inside the Beltway and the Pentagon don’t find a more expeditious way to exterminate us. 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