The Darkening Skies

Conditions: Ice Station Zebra.


The New Image Of War.

Remember a little while ago when Investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh spoke about a U.S military executive assassination ring that congress had no control over? Well bear that in mind a moment.

Sudan: The two F-16s caught the trucks deep in the northern desert. Within minutes, the column of vehicles was a string of shattered wrecks burning fiercely in the January sun. Surveillance drones spotted a few vehicles that had survived the storm of bombs and cannon shells, and the fighter-bombers returned to finish the job.

Syria: Four Blackhawk helicopters skimmed across the Iraqi border, landing at a small farmhouse near the town of al-Sukkariyeh. Black-clad soldiers poured from the choppers, laying down a withering hail of automatic weapons fire. When the shooting stopped, eight Syrians lay dead on the ground. Four others, cuffed and blindfolded, were dragged to the helicopters, which vanished back into Iraq.

Pakistan: a group of villagers were sipping tea in a courtyard when the world exploded. The Hellfire missiles seemed to come out of nowhere, scattering pieces of their victims across the village and demolishing several houses. Between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, 60 such attacks took place. They killed 14 wanted al-Qaeda members along with 687 civilians.

In each of the above incidents, no country took responsibility or claimed credit. There were no sharp exchanges of diplomatic notes before the attacks, just sudden death and mayhem.

What we are seeing is a stepping-up of black operations, carried with more ease using the latest technological marvel, like the armed hunter killers the U.S has invented.

The Predator strikes have deeply angered most Pakistanis. Owais Ahmed Ghani, governor of the Northwest Frontier Province, calls the drone strikes "counterproductive," a sentiment that David Kilcullen, the top advisor to the U.S. military in Afghanistan, agreed with in recent congressional testimony. The U.S. government doesn't officially take credit for the attacks.

- www.alternet.org/

What’s the bet that Predator drones carry no markings to indicate who they belong to? This seems the new face of warfare, where the powers-that-be finally realise that the only way to use the military to kill terrorists is to have them act like terrorists themselves, thus becoming that which they try to kill. It’s the classic story involving noses, faces and a sharp instrument, while the actual smart path lies forgotten and overgrown.



Some Light Shone Down.

As I’ve been saying, combating terrorists with air strikes is more than just stupid, it’s criminal. Civilians are going to get caught in the blasts. Which is exactly what happened in Afghanistan in may, according to a U.S military inquiry, no less.

Dozens of civilians were killed in the air strikes in western Farah province.

Some of the raids would have been called off, had the rules of engagement been followed strictly, unnamed officials were quoted as saying.
[...]

The publication of the US military report is expected later this week.

But some of the details have been leaked and the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington says this is the closest the Pentagon has come to admitting that mistakes were made when US military planes carried out attacks last month.
[...]

"American personnel made significant errors in carrying out some of the air strikes in western Afghanistan on May 4 that killed dozens of Afghan civilians," a New York Times report said, citing an unnamed senior US military official.

"In several instances where there was a legitimate threat, the choice of how to deal with that threat did not comply with the standing rules of engagement," the official was quoted as saying.

"Errors were made," in the attack, the Associated Press also quoted an official as saying.

In one case, a compound of buildings where suspected militants were massing was struck, even though it was in a densely populated area and there was no imminent threat, the New York Times said.
[...]

Gen McChrystal, currently the director of US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was named last month to replace Gen David McKiernan and is currently undergoing confirmation hearings in the US Senate.

- news.bbc.co.uk/

Now the thinking is that the new General will bring a new approach to the war in Afghanistan, hopefully an approach that doesn’t include the random killing of civilians by both sides, but really until they announce that the military approach is going to be changed, all we can do is hope for a dose of sanity and expect the same old cheap, easy, mindless approach of confronting ones enemies.



Film Review: State of Play.

This is a real old-fashioned kind of film. Russel Crowe plays a big-time Washington journalist, who stumbles onto a big conspiracy surrounding the murder of an aide to an up and coming politician, played by Ben Affleck. The case involves a large worldwide security corporation who are clearly modeled on Blackwater, who are standing to make a ton of money in contracts with the U.S government. The initial slant is that by staging her death as a suicide, and thereby uncovering the affair said politician was having with said aide, the pressure on said security company in investigative hearings about their practices will come off. But that’s really just the start of it.

In fact, the plot twists about as new wrinkles in the characters play out, and of course there’s a big twist at the end. But unlike most films that are all flash, this film really plays with some integrity to it. Casting is probably the first triumph. Russel Crowe flat out delivers in anything he’s asked to do. Good guy, bad guy, he’s always totally engaging and convincing, the guy is a remarkable actor. Here he’s all shaggy and charismatic as the veteran reporter chasing after the truth while being yelled at by his boss, no matter what. He’s assisted by Rachel McAdams, doing fine work as junior reporter learning the ropes. And Ben, who despite his standard Hollywood clean, square-jawed appearance, is able to show this character as more and more flawed and frayed with every scene.

This is a very assured film, and you get the sense throughout that everyone knows exactly what they’re doing, it’s cut to a very particular pace, and the plot is very sharp. It’s simply up to the audience to either get it or not. I have to say that’s kind of a rare approach these days, and the not-exactly Hollywood ending is a nice change as well. There’s an undercurrent of integrity versus shallow flash throughout the film, masquerading as an arc about the Newspaper being in financial trouble, and relying on the online website for help, and real newspaper men getting the real story as not being good enough in this bottom-line simplistic day and age. The film is essentially proving the worth of a good, smart, character-driven film, and more power to them. Three and a half bylines out of Five.


- Peace out.