“Civilians suffer horribly from mounting threats to their security, such as increasing numbers of roadside bombs and suicide attacks, and regular aerial bombing raids.”

So begins yesterdays press release on the war in Afghanistan from the International Committee of the Red Cross. But the phenomenon of civilians as targets is not limited to Afghanistan. From Sri Lanka to Iraq, post-modern wars between governments and militant groups increasingly result in civilians bearing the brunt of the violence. Militants consider civilians to be an acceptable target, in order to wreak maximum havoc on the state with which they are fighting. The state often responds with violence against civilians in militant-controlled or -sympathetic areas in order to punish them– and some governments erroneously believe that such attacks weaken civilian support for the militants. Attacks on civilians are against the Geneva Conventions. As summarized by the ICRC:

“The parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare the civilian population and civilian property. Neither the civilian population as a whole nor individual civilians may be attacked.”

Nearly all states in the world (194 of them) have signed the Geneva Conventions, including not only the U.S. and U.K., but Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and even Sudan and Somalia. No militant group has signed the treaty, of course, and though some claim to follow it, they are not bound by its restrictions. A state faced with such tactics is tempted to respond in kind. In Sri Lanka, the civil war has killed well over 60,000 people. Two thirds of them have been civilians.

War has always been an option open to governments. But no longer does such a choice mean two armies fielded against each other, with casualties largely limited to combatants. In post-modern war, rules have gone out the window. The enemy may be hidden, goals may be unclear, propaganda may obscure the real issues, weapons may be improvised. And casualties these days are more likely to be non-combatants than soldiers.

(Cross-posted at www.AsymptoticLife.com)

No Comments »

GM chairman Richard Wagoner told shareholders that, by gum, GM is serious about developing an electric car but sees biofuel as the way to go once the federal gummint stops all that pesky regulation.

Clearly, this is a man Who Does Not Get It. Meanwhile, Japanese car makers dance circles around the crumbling once-great empire that was the Detroit automotive industry. Why? Because the Japanese are already selling the technology and cars that Detroit is just now wheezing about producing someday in the future, once they rouse themselves from their lethargy, that is.

But wait, there’s more, US carmakers tell Congress that fuel efficiency is just too darned expensive. Odd, that this hasn’t appeared to be a problem for Japanese car makers, now has it?

5 Comments »

From an article by Richard A. Smith, his three principles for an ecosocialist economy to save us from collapse.

Ecosocialist economy of stasis. Massive cutbacks on growth and rationing in the developed world combined with strictly planned growth in the third world.

But under what mechanism could this occur? It would require either complete consensus or a very heavy-handed government indeed. Plus, the political and financial blowback from forced rationing could easily be massive and probably violent. That we need a worldwide planned approach to global warming is a given. The question is - how can this be accomplished without huge blowback,  chaos, and serious dissension?

Restructured economy of production for social need and for use. Stop manufacturing vast amounts of unneeded stuff, including much of consumer electronics, pharmaceuticals, and military arms.

While we certainly need fewer weapons on the planet, this smacks a bit of anarcho-primitivism to me, a desire to back away from technology. Some pharmaceuticals are unquestionably beneficial and posting on websites that we need fewer consumer electronics is contradictory. But then I’m an unapologetic hardcore geek. Phones are good. So is penicillin. And yes, of course way too much junk is being made.

Socialist economic democracy. Replace the profit motive with concern for the common good.

Absolutely. But how do we get there? These three proposals all assume the existence of a powerful state (or international governing body) that can mandate such changes. We don’t have that now nor is there any real possibility of there being one. In fact, things seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

As John Robb points out in Brave New War (we reviewed it on 5/5), the state is increasingly becoming “hollowed-out” and less able to deal with problems effectively, as witness the US response to Hurricane Katrina and the Kansas tornado. But mandating major restructuring on a global level to deal with global warming assumes an entity with the power to do so. That entity doesn’t exist.

If it did, it would need to operate at least largely by agreement that such changes were needed. Otherwise it’ll spend much time being a repressive enforcer, with all the counter-attacks and rebellions that would invariably spawn.

So, how do we create a planetary response to global warming? (And this discussion appliers whether you be ecosocialist or ecocapitalist.)

7 Comments »

He may have just dumped his wife, leaving her with $300 and all the bills, taking a one-way flight to Australia.

Of course, he sees it differently.

No Comments »

“It’s disgusting that people are still obsessed with Gotti and the mob. They should be obsessed with that mob in Washington. They have 3000 deaths on their hands. Worry about that mob in Washington.”

– Victoria Gotti, widow of John Gotti, quoted in the New York Daily News.

H/T. News Dissector

No Comments »

1 Comment »

More on Ian Angus’ “Confronting the climate change crisis”

The primary capitalist response to global warming has been to institute an unworkable and unenforceable system of pollution credits. Never mind that the system doesn’t work, is open to corruption, fraud and rule-breaking. At core it favors the elites and solves nothing.

George Monbiot has compared [selling pollution credits] to the medieval practice of selling indulgences. If you were rich and you committed murder or incest or whatever, the Church would sell you forgiveness for a fixed price per sin. You didn’t have to stop sinning — so long as you paid the price, the Church would guarantee your admission to heaven.

The emissions trading schemes are actually worse than that. It’s as though the Church just gave every sinner a stack of Get Out Of Hell Free cards — and those who don’t sin enough to use them all could then sell them to others who want to sin more.

So, capitalism, rather than examine itself as a possible cause of global warming, instead creates yet another way for speculators to make money, with a bunch of greenwash about how it will solve global warming.

The biggest most obvious loophole here is that the system is voluntary and not global. Polluting companies don’t have to buy credits if they don’t want to. Nor do all countries have a carbon trading program, nor is it enforceable and mandatory.

So, rather than give a serious response to global warming, capitalism gives a fig leaf of carbon trading that solves little while pretending to be green.

1 Comment »

Most people, when they think of Hartford CT, probably think of insurance companies and assume Hartford is a mostly prosperous town. Well, if you’re an insurance company maybe it is, but the class divide in Hartford is gaping and getting worse.

Hartford has a staggering poverty rate, made worse by the frequent propensity of major businesses to move from Hartford to nearby prosperous suburbs. Such moves are devastating to Hartford in large part because there are no counties with governing power in Connecticut, and thus no way to spread resources around at a regional level. If an insurance company moves from Hartford to Bloomfield, Bloomfield gets all the revenue and Hartford loses every penny of it. If there were functioning counties, Hartford would get some remediation. But there aren’t.

Consider these statistics:

As of 2000, Hartford had both the lowest per capita income (pdf) and and highest poverty rate (pdf) of any town in Connecticut - while Connecticut itself has the highest per capita income of any state.

As of 2004 (xls) 54% of children live with a single parent. Ethnically, it’s 38% African-American and 40% Latino, mostly Puerto Rican.

Staggeringly, at least one in six Hartford children has one or both parents in prison. Families in Crisis, a Hartford-based organization, works with the families of the incarcerated.

Sadly though, the City of Hartford remains comatose about all of this. As an example, in a recent remarkably bone-headed move, the City floated a plan to drastically increase already nose-bleed level property taxes to even higher levels for small businesses on major streets. Gee, what a swell idea, drive the little shop owners out, that’ll really help the fabric of the city. Did I mention that the same plan also would decrease property taxes for large businesses? Yet more proof, if any be needed, of the gaping class divide in Hartford.

No Comments »