Perry officially declares candidacy

Washington Post Saturday August 13, 2011

CHARLESTON, S.C.-Texas Gov. Rick Perry officially declared his presidential candidacy Saturday, telling a crowd in this key primary state that he will run for the nomination to challenge President Obama in 2012.

In front of a crowd of 500 at the Francis Marion Hotel, Perry used his first speech as a candidate to brag about job creation in Texas under his leadership and argue he could dramatically improve the American economy if elected president.

“I do not accept the path that America is on…Because a renewed nation needs a renewed president. It is time to get America working again,” Perry told the cheering crowd. “I declare to you today as a candidate for president of the United States of America.”

Perry’s speech, coming on the same day Republicans in Ames, Iowa will cast the first votes of the GOP nomination contest, is the start of a campaign launch that includes a stop in New Hampshire later Saturday and then several days of events in the Hawkeye State starting Sunday.

“In reality, though this is the just most recent downgrade,” Perry said, referring to the recent downgrading of the U.S. credit rating. “The fact is for nearly three years, President Obama has been downgrading American jobs, he’s been downgrading our standing in the world, he’s been downgrading our financial stability, he’s been downgrading confidence and downgrading the hope of a better future for our children.”

Perry’s late entrance thrusts into an already-crowded Republican field a candidate with the potential to win the GOP primary, even though some of his rivals have a substantial headstart on the Texas governor because they have been campaigning for months. While Perry was not drafted into the race, conservative activists pushed for him to run in part because of dissatisfaction with the current field of Republican candidates.

His candidacy could solidify the Republican field, which has been unsettled for months as a series of figures from Donald Trump to Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels have flirted but ultimately opted against running. 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin says she is still considering a candidacy, but has made little effort to build the kind of operation that would be required to run.

The governor of the nation’s second largest state for 11 years, Perry enters the campaign with a host of advantages: a strong fundraising base, popularity with both tea party and religious conservatives and job growth in Texas under his leadership even as the national economy continues to struggle.

Perry, 61, has spent weeks preparing for a campaign and already has some critical elements in place. He has courted key party donors and will hold a series of fundraisers over the next month. In support of his candidacy, a group of his former aides has started a “super-PAC,”a political committee that can raise unlimited sums.

Secret film shows slaughter to the world Covert operation finally exposes Taiji’s annual dolphin horror

News Articles

Secret film shows slaughter to the world
Covert operation finally exposes Taiji’s annual dolphin horror

By Boyd Harnell
Special to The Japan Times

For the first time ever, graphic feature-length footage of the annual slaughter of some 2,500 dolphins in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, has been captured during a unique yearlong covert operation.

The secret filming by members of the U.S. conservation group Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS) — equipped with state-of-the-art technology is being turned into a major documentary feature film destined for worldwide release this summer (although distribution in Japan is at present not certain).

The story of how this film of the barbaric killing and subsequent butchering of dolphins was made — together with the resulting sale of their meat that massively exceeds Japanese and international limits for mercury content — is told here, exclusively, for the first time anywhere in print.

OPS filming team leader Louie Psihoyos (foreground, above) and assistant director Charles Hambleton in camouflage overlooking Taiji’s “killing cove,” where whalers (below) haul dolphins aboard their boat from the blood-red sea. OPS PHOTO

The footage of the annual seven-month dolphin “drive fisheries” (as they are known in Japan), and of the brutal practices involved in them — as well as the complicity in the killings by various dolphin trainers and officials from Taiji Whale Museum — is sure to shock the world. But whether Japanese people themselves will be able to see the film and arrive at their own conclusions is still by no means certain. The annual dolphin slaughter at Taiji, a town with a population of some 3,500 in the beautiful Yoshino Kumano Kokuritsu Koen national park, follows a regular pattern. First, hunter boats from the Taiji Isana Union (numbering at most 13 skiffs, with two crewmen each) head out to sea and surround pods of dolphins or pilot whales (which are actually large dolphins). Then they drive them into a “capture cove” by banging on long metal bell-ended poles placed in the water to disrupt the dolphins’ sonar, causing them to become completely disorientated and panic. After these animals have spent a night supposedly relaxing in the netted-off capture cove (in an attempt by the whalers to make their meat more tender), they are driven to the neighboring “killing cove.” There, behind huge blue tarps strung across the cove to keep prying eyes away — in much the same way that Japanese police cordon off crime scenes — the dolphins meet their gruesome predawn end.

It is a gory spectacle that Taiji has long striven to keep anyone from seeing — and one that is crucially fueled by the lucrative, worldwide dolphin captivity and display industry. Aquarium operators, some of whom have claimed to be saving dolphins’ lives by selecting a few as performers, pay up to $150,000 per animal.

A baby dolphin leaps to its death on rocks (above) after its mother is killed, and a whaler (below) hauls in another speared victim. OPS PHOTOS

The brutal selection process, though — as shown in the OPS footage — causes many of these highly intelligent marine mammals to die of shock or drown. Meanwhile, cruelty apart, the government-sanctioned slaughter is widely condemned by Japanese scientists, activists and a few Taiji officials, who all cite the serious health issues related to consumption of the dolphins’ mercury-tainted meat. One of the officials OPS filmed was Taiji City Councilman Junichiro Yamashita, who organized certified tests on local dolphin meat bought from retail outlets in the town. The shocking test results revealed mercury and methylmercury levels that were 30 and 16 times, respectively, above advisory levels set by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. As a result, Yamashita hastily distributed newsletters to Taiji residents warning them to avoid consuming the meat — which he called “toxic waste.”

Although a massive blackout of this long-standing butchery of small cetaceans is aided by an apparent self-imposed boycott of the subject by Japan’s vernacular and other English-language media, this newspaper has published a 2 1/2-year-long series of exposes that have won it two international press awards from the Humane Society of the United States.

Now, though, the focus is on the meticulously planned $2.5-million covert operation — the cost of which is estimated to double by the time of the film’s projected release in June.

From their base in Boulder, Colorado, the OPS group made six trips to Wakayama Prefecture, where they were constantly followed by local police and stalked and harassed by Taiji “whalers.” Despite this, their mission was successful. Their high-tech film gear was covertly inserted in the “killing cove” and extracted 16 times thanks to the efforts of the film’s assistant director, Charles Hambleton, and three members of the OPS team. Their hidden, high-definition (HD) cameras successfully recorded the horror that unfolded behind Taiji’s blue tarps. And what they saw was beyond their belief.

Captured dolphins were filmed writhing in pain as Taiji whalers speared them repeatedly or cracked their spines with spiked weapons. Stricken dolphins are also shown thrashing about wildly, blood pouring from their wounds until they finally succumbed. Meanwhile, a number of dolphin trainers and officials from the Taiji Whale Museum are shown cooperating in the slaughter — some even laughing — as the killing cove’s bloodied, ruby-red water swept round into the adjacent capture cove.

Members of a multi-national pro-surfer group at Taiji last October, where ˜ despite harassment by whalers ˜ they formed a prayer circle of protest in the waters of the “killing cove” where dolphins were being speared. OPS PHOTO

Also included in the formidable lineup of high-tech gear for this covert operation were standard-size HD cameras, $50,000 military-grade HD forward-looking infrared (FLIR) P-645 thermal cameras (to detect anyone the whalers had on lookout); hydrophones and HD underwater cameras (to record the dolphins’ underwater throes); unmanned gyro-stabilized helicopters; a number of “shotgun” microphones disguised as tree branches; walkie-talkies; and a host of ancillary equipment. The mission objective was to produce a well-balanced, full-length documentary feature for general worldwide release encompassing all facets of the Taiji dolphin cull and its health risks.

“We succeeded,” Psihoyos said, “but we also came back with an epic horror film resembling a Steven King novel more than a documentary.”

Psihoyos emphasized that the film is neither anti-Japanese nor a “Japan-bashing” production.

In fact, the whole OPS Taiji odyssey began in the winter of 2006. Then, Psihoyos says, “My assistant director, Charles Hambleton, and I had a seven-hour meeting at the mayor’s office with Taiji town officials about making a movie of their town.

“An official, who represented Mayor Kazutaka Sangen, said they were concerned about Westerners showing blood in the cove — that it gave the town an evil look.”

Psihoyos says he told the officials he would not show blood in his film — if they allowed him to position two cameras at the entrance to the cove and to interview the whalers. After mulling it over, though, both officials and whalers cut off contact with Psihoyos and denied him permission to film near the cove. As well, they demanded that he should restrict footage showing blood — apparently fearful that barbarous images may lead to their drive hunts being banned.

Entrails and internal organs of dolphins killed in “drive fisheries” and then brought to land for butchering lie unsuccessfully hidden from view on the floor of the slaughterhouse in Taiji adjacent to the “killing cove” there. BOYD HARNELL PHOTO

In this volatile atmosphere, local police warned the whalers and their supporters off any repeat of violence or threats of violence such as had happened before. In fact, Nigel Barker, a former Australian resident in Taiji, says he was threatened with bodily harm for providing The Japan Times with details of the whalers’ brutal methods. In another incident, Psihoyos said he, too, was threatened by whalers, who said, “We will kill you.”

Amazingly, though, after their talks broke down and the OPS people were leaving their final meeting with Taiji town officials, they were given a detailed map of Taiji, red-lining areas where filming was restricted. This map became a precious tool for planning the group’s covert ops over the next year.

Now the gloves were off. No agreement had been made with the officials and Psihoyos immediately planned a thorough reconnaissance of the Taiji area. Precise vantage points were selected to position their cameras. Several camouflaged camera blinds were set up on the headland adjacent to the Whale Museum that overlooks the killing cove. But their major challenge was figuring out how to insert and extract their “rock cameras,” underwater cameras, hydrophones and hidden microphones without being detected.

Psihoyos contacted Ric O’Barry, who captured and trained dolphins for the 1960s TV series “Flipper,” asking for his help in detailing the whalers’ routine during drive hunts.

O’Barry, head of the international Save Japan Dolphins coalition, had monitored the drives in Taiji for more than five years, and he agreed to be the point man for OPS. O’Barry was already hated by the whalers for his activities, including bringing the media to Taiji to film the brutal drives. In fact, he tells how whalers greet him with throat-cutting gestures when they see him there.

Following O’Barry’s advice, the OPS group implemented their high-risk strategy for filming the covert mission. As the two headlands overlooking the killing cove were constantly monitored by whalers, members faced the loss of expensive gear and possible arrest. That was despite Japanese attorneys telling them that the legality of blocking access to a national park was questionable. They said, though, that police “made up their own rules” in enforcing the blockade.

Ric O’Barry, trainer of the dolphins for the 1960s TV series “Flipper,” and head of the Save Japan Dolphins coalition, wears a video-vest in Tokyo’s hip Shibuya district showing graphic images of dolphins being killed in Taiji.

The OPS group was headquartered in hotel rooms in the area, where their missions were planned and piles of pricey equipment occupied most of the space. Two vans were rented to haul their weighty gear to their target locations. Another small, unobtrusive rental car driven by OPS member Joe Chisholm was used for scouting — mostly for monitoring the Taiji harbor area to check if drive boats were out. Chisholm also kept an eye on the roads to detect whether police were following the group. Altogether, the incredible challenges of making this film elevated it to a major undertaking on a scale never before attempted.

Throughout this buildup period, drive fisheries were being conducted during daylight. If the whalers were successful, captured dolphins would be trapped in the holding cove sealed off with nets. Before daybreak the next day, men in motorboats would herd the panicked animals into the killing cove of no return.

The horror of the dolphins’ final moments there were recorded not only by the “rock cameras” above the waterline, but also from below by using underwater microphones and an underwater “blood-cam” HD camera devised by OPS high-tech guru Simon Hutchins, which yielded graphic footage of the sea slowly turning red as the killings continued.

To make this possible, OPS called on Mandy-Rae Cruickshank, a seven-time world free-diving champion, and her famed coach and husband, Kirk Krack, to plant the devices. (Cruikshank recently broke her own world record by free-diving down to 88 meters and back in 2 min. 48 sec.) Both eagerly accepted the risky challenge.

“Good to go Mandy,” crackled through the two-way. It was 3 a.m. The OPS support group on land had just completed a thermal-imaging sweep of the capture and killing coves. No security was detected. As the OPS van dropped the two off above the holding cove’s small beach, and sped away, the free-diving pair, clad in wet suits, entered the water. The moon was full, helping them to see obstacles.

“Tensions were high . . . we had to get around a barbed-wire fence and hike down over some boulders to get into the water,” Mandy said. “Then we swam around to the killing cove. It was about 40 feet (12 meters) deep. We had an underwater camera and hydrophone, and we used a flashlight to get a reference point so we knew where to retrieve them from after we made a reconnaissance, but we had to turn it on and off quickly to escape detection. Then Kirk and I put down the devices fairly easily.”

On their return to the beach in the holding cove, Cruickshank said, “We saw a car going into the parking lot, so we hid in bushes until they left and then we waited for the van to pick us up.”

Before that mission and again afterward, she said, “We were constantly monitored by police.”

A few days later, Cruikshank said that from that same beach in the capture cove they saw a pod of 40 herded round to the killing cove, where the slaughter began. “They had separated the babies, some only as big as my arm, and then the emerald water in front of us began to turn red and you could hear the dolphins screaming. One stabbed dolphin tried to escape, and it made it over two nets from the killing cove and was heading toward the beach in the capture cove with blood streaming from it. We saw the last two breaths it took — it was impossible not to cry.

“The babies were led out to sea and were either killed or set free to die of starvation,” she said.

Meanwhile, Psihoyos’ team was embedded in their camera blinds on overlooking hillsides, sometimes for as long as 17 hours a day. Dressed in full camouflage gear and wearing face paint, they looked like military sniper teams. Black masking tape covered reflective surfaces on their cameras to avoid detection. For over 3 1/2 weeks, the OPS team survived on a daily ration of 3 hours’ sleep. When filming from the camera blinds, they subsisted on energy bars and water. Whaler security men, always wary of outsiders monitoring their hunts, constantly scanned the high terrain, the bushes and undergrowth surrounding the two coves, their flashlights searching for intruders.

Fake rocks to disguise hidden cameras are sculpted out of foam (top) at Kerner Optical in California (formerly George “Star Wars” Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic Shop); world free-diving champion Mandy-Rae Cruickshank (above), who, together with her husband Kirk Krack (below, in thermal-image photo) secretly positioned many of the high-tech devices to record what happens in Taiji’s “killing cove,” OPS PHOTOS

Psihoyos recounted his attempt in setting up the initial camera blind in a spot overlooking the killing cove. “It was a moonless night and I had a full-size def (HD) camera in tow with a large tripod. I scaled a cliff and descended on a rope and perched on a shelf as big as an average office desk — but at a slope of about 30 degrees. “I braced my feet against a small tree and didn’t move them for the next 15 1/2 hours,” he said, adding, “the lagoon was filled with pilot whales — they made a protective circle around their young. I shot frantic clips from my unstable perch as I saw whales killed and dragged away.” Reacting to these brutal scenes, Psihoyos recalled thinking, “If there’s a god, don’t let their lives be wasted in vain.” Originally, OPS’s hidden rock cameras focused on the killing cove from surrounding headlands could only film for three hours, but a high-tech piece of kit they acquired “turbocharged” the batteries to allow them to film for 11 hours continuously, ensuring they would capture all facets of the cull. Indeed, contrary to their statements, the Taiji whalers seem unconcerned about killing female dolphins and their calves — as is graphically depicted in one of the film’s sequences. However, along with the film’s horrific images, Psihoyos also interviews on camera Japanese scientists and others involved in the mercury health issues surrounding dolphin meat. Dr. Shigeo Ekino, a prominent researcher from Kumamoto University’s Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Kyushu, compared the high mercury levels found in contaminated fish in Minamata, Japan, in the 1950s during the world’s worst mercury-pollution disaster, to levels of mercury currently found in dolphin meat.

Ekino, who was filmed holding a tested sample of Taiji dolphin meat, said: “This dolphin meat is 98.9 ppm (parts per million of total mercury) — which is higher than the level (of the fish and shellfish) in Minamata Bay. It’s a clear danger!”

His sample was 247.25 times the Japanese health ministry’s advisory level of 0.4 ppm for total mercury.

Tetsuya Endo, a professor at Hokkaido’s Health Science University, also conducted mercury tests on dolphin meat, and his results were published in 2005. In a filmed OPS interview, he said: “I found 100 ppm of total mercury in . . . bottlenose dolphin and 2,000 ppm of total mercury in the liver of an unknown (dolphin) species. All of it was toxic.” In fact, the higher figure was 5,000 times the health ministry’s advisory level for mercury.

In another OPS interview, Psihoyos asked Hideki Moronuki, deputy director of the Far Seas Fisheries Division of the central government’s Fisheries Agency, “How are the dolphins killed now? . . . and are the dolphins being dragged around by their tails during the selection process for captive specimens?”

Assistant director Charles Hambleton fits an HD camera into a fake rock set to capture the “killing cove” killings. OPS PHOTO

Moronuki is filmed replying, “Fishermen are using specifically made knife (sic), and put it through the spine . . . most of the animals are killed instantly.” As for allegations of them being dragged by their tails, he says, “That’s not happening anymore.” When Psihoyos showed Moronuki a film clip of the inhumane, random spearing of dolphins while others were dragged by their tails — all filmed recently — he froze and told Psihoyos: “I have to instruct them again. They are using inappropriate method to treat dolphin.” At Psihoyos’ request, Moronuki gave him a hair sample to be tested for mercury.

The result: a readout of 5.874 ppm of total mercury, which is 14.68 times the health ministry’s advisory level.

Moronuki’s response was peculiar: “I was very happier to know that I have eaten so much fish which make me much healthier than meat-eating peoples.”

Another dramatic highlight of the footage shows a surfer invasion in Taiji last October led by legendary Australian pro surfer Dave Rastovich, along with a few TV celebrities and some surfer buddies. They paddled into the cove where dolphins were being slaughtered and formed a prayer circle. Shocked by the atrocity, they finally retreated when whalers in skiffs came and prodded them with poles and sharp-hooked gaffs.

Producers of the OPS documentary are aiming for a worldwide release in June, including a special Japanese version creatively marketed and circulated to ensure maximum viewing even if major distributors turn it down. The film’s narrator will be an actor selected from Hollywood’s “A list,” they said.

Referring to his hopes the film will benefit the dolphins, Psihoyos said: “Dolphins are the only wild animals known to rescue humans. With this film, we’d like to come to their rescue and, in the process, save ourselves.”

Pointedly, just months before the surfers went into the killing cove at Taiji, their leader Dave Rastovich had survived a shark attack in Australia when a dolphin swam between him and the shark and allowed him to escape.

Popular Opinion

I’m not sure I want popular opinion on my side — I’ve noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts.

Bethania McKenstry

The Rich Don’t Create Jobs – We Do

By Tina Dupuy | June 1st, 2011 |

The rich don’t create jobs. The bottom 80% of Americans have 15% of the net worth, and the top 1% has 35% of the net worth in what is still the richest country on earth. So, when I say “rich” – I mean really really rich. “The rich create jobs” is a well-worn catch phrase from right-leaning political yappers who give this 1% all the credit when it comes to the financial health of the country. But the rich are not, in fact, the venerated “job creators.”

What creates jobs? Demand. You and me and all the other unwashed masses demanding a product or service forces businesses to hire more people. It’s not “the rich” out of the goodness of their hearts hiring poor slobs to help them out. It’s a simple Econ 101 staple: Supply and demand.

Demand is a good old democratic/egalitarian tenet of the power of the consumer.

Supply is the purview of businesses and the acclaimed entrepreneurs .

We want – they deliver. Basic economics. Basis of civilization.

Supply-side economics is…well, one sided. And currently not growing anything but wealth disparity.

So why treat “the rich” as some fragile group of demigod humanitarians who will wither if ever subjected to a tax increase? Republicans act like taxes are the kryptonite/Achilles heel/Samson haircut to their mythical hero job creators. Americans are noted for being resilient, hardy and enduring people. But the rich must have constant coddling, or they won’t survive?

One type of job created by high demand and, therefore, wealth is lobbyist positions. Lobbyists are a security force hired to protect your pile of cash. And since the Republicans just so happen to be the party that will tell you wealth as a virtue, poverty as a personal failing and taxes as the most putrid of punishments – well, it sounds like the said pile of cash defending itself.

Despite the soaring deficit due to unpaid-for tax cuts and unpaid-for wars, the solution to the sagging economy in the Republican-controlled House is…wait for it…more tax cuts.

Yes, the Republican proposed “JOBS Act” calls for the top corporate tax rate to be cut by 10%. It will also dismantle Unemployment Insurance as we know it.

More unpaid-for tax cuts?! Sound familiar? In a word: Yes.

“Just because we proposed it in the past doesn’t mean it was not a good idea,” House Speaker John Boehner told POLITICO. “The fact is, we’ve had a lot of good ideas. We’re trying to package this in a way where the American people understand what it’s going to take in terms of changing policies here that will create jobs in America.”

Why do Republicans believe the wealthy are solely responsible for the economic well-being of the nation? If the rich were the job creators – they have failed at the task (ahem, 9% unemployment) so because of that the GOP should stop kowtowing to them. If a chef, whose job is to create meals didn’t create meals (except maybe overseas), he’d be fired – not “given more incentives” to create meals.

President Bill Clinton, who left office with a budget surplus, said last week at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit in Washington, “The, the idea that the lower the tax rates are, the better everything’ll be has been debunked now for 30 years both in positive terms when I was president, and in negative terms by quadrupling the debt once and then doubling it again.  So, I mean, how many times do we have to see this movie before we know how it ends?”

Yes, if deregulation and unpaid-for tax cuts were the secret to a robust economy – we’d have a robust economy. The Democrats are pegged as the party of “tax and spend” – but at least when you TAX and spend – the spending is paid for.

Here’s some demand-side economics: Pay for spending. Tax the rich.

Stating the Union

In front of a half-tough crowd

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Article II, section 3, of the U.S. Constitution requires presidents to give “information on the state of the union” to the Congress “from time to time.” Generally, presidents have figured “from time to time” means once a year, around when Congress convenes, but there’s no rule. And, of course, “information” needn’t be speeches.

Precedents for Presidents

In 1790, George Washington delivered the first State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress convened in New York City (then the nation’s capital). At 1,085 words, Washington’s address is among the shortest ever. After hearing the president’s proposals, Congress debated, drafted, and delivered a courteous reply promising its cooperation.

So such speeches went until 1801, when Thomas Jefferson became president. Jefferson thought Washington’s approach reeked of royalty. (In fact, the idea for the State of the Union address did derive from a British tradition in which the king opened Parliament with a “Speech from the Throne.”) What’s more, Jefferson thought the Congress had better things to do than debate replies to presidential speeches.

Rather than speaking, Jefferson submitted his message in writing–saving Congress from “the bloody conflict which the making an answer would have committed them.” The next 24 presidents followed Jefferson’s lead rather than Washington’s, delivering written “information” instead of speeches.

Memorable Moments

In 1823, James Monroe used his written message to Congress to lay out the Monroe Doctrine, which declared that “the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”

In the midst of the Civil War, in 1862, Abraham Lincoln used his message to propose emancipation of the slaves. “The fiery trial through which we pass,” he wrote, “will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free–honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.”

Finally, in 1913, Woodrow Wilson decided to follow Washington’s lead and not Jefferson’s. He gave a speech to both houses of Congress–reestablishing, as he put it, that “the President of the United States is a person, not a mere department of the government hailing Congress from some isolated island of jealous power.”

Media Darlings

Ten years after Wilson’s speech, Calvin Coolidge delivered the first State of the Union address to be broadcast by radio. But most agree that the master of the radio address was Franklin Roosevelt, who in 1941 famously looked forward to a future founded on four freedoms: “The first is freedom of speech and expression. . . . The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. . . . The third is freedom from want. . . . The fourth is freedom from fear.”

President Harry Truman delivered the first televised State of the Union speech in 1947, but he didn’t do it in prime time. The first president to take full advantage of the power of prime-time TV was Lyndon Johnson, in 1965. The following year saw the first televised opposition response immediately following the address. So much for carefully debated replies.

–Steve Sampson

Why Kashmir Gives People the Sweats

Both India and Pakistan want Kashmir

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Pakistan, experts say, has no fewer than 30 nuclear warheads. India has no fewer than 50. And for more than 60 years, the two have been on the brink of war in Kashmir.

It’s safe to say they aren’t fighting over really soft sweaters. So why have both nuclear nations been willing to risk the ultimate conflict? The territorial tiff goes back to Britain’s imperial shrinkage after World War II. Yet the conflict’s cultural roots go far deeper.

Colonial Past

Prior to 1947, India was the brightest jewel in Great Britain’s colonial crown. For two centuries, starting in 1608, British traders marshaled more and more influence over India, until by the 19th century, Britain effectively ruled the land. By 1876, British Queen Victoria was Empress of India, too.

By 1906, the Indians had seen quite enough of the Brits. That year, the Indian National Congress, a nationalist party that since 1885 had pushed for greater Indian say in the British Raj, passed a resolution calling for swaraj, or self-rule. In 1930, the nationalists were more emphatic, demanding purna swaraj–complete self-rule.

Divided Future

Yet the possibility of self-rule exposed splits in the “self” that might actually do the ruling. India is predominantly Hindu, but more than 120 million Muslims live there, too. In fact, for centuries, India’s Muslims had it pretty good–so good that, more often than not, they ruled the land. Beginning in the 8th century, Muslim invaders pushed progressively into India’s heart. By 1206, they ruled as sultans in Delhi.

India’s Congress Party nationalists were mindful of the land’s cultural and religious diversity, and so adopted a policy of secular nonpreference. Their goal, they said, was simply to make the British “quit India” and then to make India into a modern secular democracy, with no religious or ethnic group preferred over any other.

Muslim leaders had other ideas. They believed that with only 12 percent of the population, India’s Muslims could never hope to have enough electoral power to ensure their fair treatment. So they proposed that the British partition India into two states: one Hindu, one Muslim.

The British knew all about India’s long history of sectarian strife. In fact, the British Raj often helped to stoke it, subscribing to the old Latin dictum divide et impera–”divide and rule.” So when civil war erupted between India’s Hindu and Muslim populations in 1946, the British figured that partitioning Muslims from Hindus was the best choice. In 1947, India got its self-rule, but so did Pakistan–a “land of the pure” cartographically created out of Muslim-majority provinces as a homeland for Indian Muslims.

Exodus, Massacre, War

The partition had massive and lasting repercussions. Millions of Hindus in the new land of Pakistan migrated to India–attacked and killed by Muslim rioters all the way. Millions of Muslims in India migrated to Pakistan–attacked and killed by Hindu rioters all the way. At least 10 million people participated in the two-way exodus. Of those, some 1 million died in the sectarian strife.

Needless to say, India and Pakistan did not become friends. But it took Kashmir to push the two into war. Under the terms of the British partition, the maharajas who ruled India’s princely states (under British supervision, of course) could decide to cast their lot with India or with the Muslim state of Pakistan. Kashmir’s ruler, Hari Singh, was a Hindu, but his people were predominantly Muslim. For him, either choice was political suicide. So, like any good politician, he opted not to choose, hoping that some other option–perhaps an independent Kashmir he could rule–would present itself.

Events soon forced his hand. Muslims along Kashmir’s border with Pakistan revolted, and Pashtun tribesmen from Pakistan invaded, trying to ensure the region’s place in the Muslim fold. As the warriors approached Kashmir’s capital, Singh agreed to go India’s way, with his choice to be validated later by plebiscite. As soon as he signed the instrument of accession (some say before), Indian troops entered Kashmir to defend what they now claimed was Indian territory.

Pakistan cried foul, Pakistani troops entered Kashmir, and the first Indo-Pak war was on. From October 1947 to January 1949, the two forces clashed, with no decisive stroke scored by either nation. Spent, both sides agreed to a cease-fire, with about half of Kashmir controlled by Pakistan and half by India, separated by a “Line of Control.” U.N. resolutions called for Pakistan to withdraw its troops from Kashmir, for India to decrease its military presence, and then for Kashmiris to vote to decide the fate of their land.

Though India originally supported the call for a Kashmiri plebiscite, to this day the vote has never occurred–because, according to India, Pakistan has never withdrawn its troops from the region. India and Pakistan fought round two in 1965, and clashed again in 1971, but the Line of Control remains roughly where it was in 1947. Few people expect a peaceful resolution over Kashmir anytime soon. Even fewer want war to settle the dispute.

–Michael Himick

2010 and Beyond: The Middle East in the Crosshairs

2010 and Beyond: The Middle East in the Crosshairs by Steve Elwart, IDB Folio Specialist

It is a darker world today than it was a year ago.

Charlie Allen, Chief Intelligence Officer / Department of Homeland Security

Two events in the United States overshadowed all others in 2008 and still loom large as we enter 2010. One was the financial crisis that, spreading from America’s subprime mortgage mess, has stricken the global economy. The other was the election of Barack Obama to the United States presidency. Both events highlight the emergence of a new relationship between America and the world; both color every major event in geopolitics today.

Central and South Asia win our attention by threatening to drag us all into chaos. Russia and China grab our notice by playing the great power game. Petroleum-exporting states like Venezuela hold oil consumers hostage, while financial fears consume the West. What does the Middle East have to do to make us pay attention? With the new administration in control in the United States, backed by same-party control of both houses of Congress, foreign affairs have taken a back seat to domestic affairs. The push in the U.S. to pull the economy out of recession, health care “reform,” and the now near-dead cap and trade legislation has reduced the Middle East to a footnote in the Obama administration’s policy agenda.

But before we go any further, some background is needed on one of the underlying theories that drove U.S. and Israeli foreign policies, the Nash Equilibrium.

John Forbes Nash, Jr. (the main character in the movie, A Beautiful Mind) is an American mathematician who worked primarily in game theory. In 1994, his life work on game theory won him the Nobel Prize in Economics. The precept that won him the prize was the Nash Equilibrium. The Nash Equilibrium is a kind of game involving two or more players, where no player has anything to gain by changing only his or her own strategy.

Simply put, John Nash quantified the concept of “reciprocal altruism.” This is the concept of doing something good for an-other person without regard for repayment. The other, darker side of this theory is to attack anyone who attacks you, but harder.

This “tit-for-tat” strategy had gained favor in the Bush ad-ministration even before the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. When the attacks did come, the thinking was, “You came here and attacked our home? We will come to your house and kill you.” This precipitated the attack on Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was only part of the equation. The Al-Qaeda group in Saudi Arabia was still a force to be reckoned with, but they had the protection of elements of the Saudi government and the Royal Family, who for the most part are one and the same. The United States government then was in a quandary. They didn’t want to invade Saudi Arabia, the leading exporter of oil to the United States, but they had to send a message. The invasion of Iraq at the time seemed to fit the bill. The Iraqi government was headed by a brutal dictator, was thought to possess weapons of mass destruction, and did not have many friends in the Muslim or world community. The United States needed to send a message to Saudi Arabia that we would invade a Muslim country and clean out Al-Qaeda if they would not do it themselves: Iraq was an object lesson for the Saudis.

There was only one problem in the United States’ thinking. The Nash Equilibrium only works if both parties have some-thing equal to lose: “How do you win in a game of Chicken when your opponent thinks he will go to heaven if he loses?” The U.S. invasion of Iraq and subsequent invasion of Afghanistan produced many of the same results as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It galvanized Muslim resistance against the foreign infidels. Terrorists from around the world poured in to fight the Allied troops. They believed that they were in Jihad and if they died, they would immediately enter paradise.

For all the hand-wringing over the U.S.-led invasions, most countries were either ambivalent about the engagement or actually glad it came. Many European countries—especially the French, Germans, and Russians—saw it as a business opportunity. The Sunni-dominated Saudi government saw it as Iraq being removed as a threat to their oil supplies, as did the Shiite-dominated Iranian government.

At first, the U.S. had the enthusiastic support of the Iranian government (even allowing our planes to land in Iran if they had mechanical trouble). This was because the Iranians were led to believe that the U.S. would support a Shiite-led government in Iraq, an Iranian puppet state, in effect. The Iranian government’s attitude changed once they saw the United States overtures to the Sunni faction in Iraq. It is interesting to note that Iran didn’t start talking about nuclear weapons until they began to feel like the U.S. was dealing them out of the game. In the beginning, the whole discussion was not about nuclear weapons, it was about Iraq.

The outcome of this “tit-for-tat” game is that now there are two countries in a state of flux. Iraq is approaching a semblance of order, but Afghanistan is hurtling headlong down the road toward an even more entrenched Taliban-led regime. Since the United States introduced a major shift in the balance of power in the region, it is up to them to bring closure to both these countries. As General Colin Powell once said, “You break it, you own it.”²

Iraq

The history of Iraq goes back to Genesis 11 and Nimrod, the first world dictator. While today the capital is in Baghdad, Babylon is the center of history of that country. It is interesting that in these times the country that incorporates the Plain of Shinar has, once again, taken center stage.

Stretching back to 3000 B.C. Iraq, like its neighbors, thinks in terms of decades and centuries rather than months and years. A story is told around Iraq about two men that used to meet every morning for coffee. One day the first man disappeared for a month and then came back to their morning ritual. When asked where he had gone, the man replied, “You remember that man who wronged me 10 years ago? Well, I went to his village and killed him.” To which the second man replied, “Why the hurry?”

This is the mind-set of the Iraqi people. The insurgents know that Westerners are impatient, so they are willing to use time to their advantage. The insurgents think that all they have to do is wait and the foreigners will leave.

Though the United States’ commitment to Iraq is far from over, it has reached a crossroads. While the U.S. was the major contributor of forces to the war effort, about 40 countries sent troops to fight in what was called “Multinational Force-Iraq.” As of this summer, however, only one foreign country’s forces remain in country—the United States. A name change in January 2010 will reflect the new reality, when the term “Multinational Force-Iraq” will be changed to “United States Forces-Iraq.” If there is an endgame in Iraq, we are now in it. Again, much of this is being forced by American impatience.

Barack Obama the Candidate was a far different person than Barack Obama the President. President Obama has found that extricating the armed forces from Iraq is not as easy as it sounded in November 2008. He inherited a strategic plan from President George W. Bush that called for coalition forces to help create an Iraqi national military and security force that would be able to keep the central government’s authority and the country’s territorial cohesion and integrity. The strategy had, as a central premise, the belief that the Shiite, Sunni and Kurd factions in the country could cobble together a government in which all factions would participate and their interests were protected. While this government was forming, the United States would reduce its presence in the country un-til the summer of 2010, when the last of the U.S. military would leave.

While the Obama administration continues to blame the previous administration for the current state of foreign policy, President Obama continues to faithfully follow the Bush Plan. A defining moment is fast approaching. While the Iraqi government is far from a first-tier fighting force, they are continuing to put their mark on the country. All the while, forces in-side and outside the country are reexamining their power-sharing arrangements and some are trying to disrupt the en-tire process. The two major players in this disruption are the Kurds and the Shiites. The major issue is oil.

Iraq is a country of three distinct groups: the Kurds in the north, the Shiites in the central part of the country, and the Sunnis to the south. The Kurds have oil fields (and oil revenue) on their land, the Sunnis have oil on their land, and the Shiites have a lot of sand. The Sunnis (and the U.S. and Saudi Arabia) do not want the Shiites to control the government (and all the oil revenue). The Shiites (with 60% of the population) don’t want the minority Sunni (30%) to cut them out of power and oil. The Kurds (10%) don’t want to be governed by either group; they want their own country. (The Turks and the Iranians do not want autonomy for the Kurds in Iraq because it may give the Kurdish populations in their countries ideas.) The Russians desperately want the United States to fail be-cause they truly fear U.S. dominance in the region. All of this is centering on Kirkuk, 150 miles north of Baghdad.

Kirkuk is the gateway into Iraqi Kurdistan. If the Sunnis control Kirkuk, they can project their power into Kurdistan. If the Kurds control it, it shuts down the Sunni threat and also cuts Sunni access to oil revenues in the region. If the Sunnis are shut out of the region, it can lead to being shut out of pow-er by the Kurds and Shia.

To the north and west of Iraq is Turkey. Turkey is a volatile force in the Iraq equation. Iraqi Kurdistan is only part of the Kurdish homeland—Kurds also live in parts of Turkey (18% of the nation’s population), Syria (10%), and Iran (7%). It is the dream of the Kurds in these four countries to have a single homeland carved out of these four regions. If the Kurds in Iraq become too strong, Turkey may see this as a threat to their national sovereignty and may opt for a military response.

This places the United States in a precarious position. In the last days of the Hussein regime in Iraq, the United States sup-ported a Kurdish insurgency in their area of the country. The Kurds allied with the United States, but also carried deep suspicions dating back to the previous Bush administration.

During the First Gulf War, the administration of George H. W. Bush also worked with the Kurds to form a fifth column movement in Iraq. When the war was over, the United States left the Kurds to their own devices and they were slaughtered. Kurdish memories are long and they are afraid that George Bush the son would do the same thing that George Bush the father did.

Today’s situation is further complicated by private investment by U.S. companies in Iraqi oil interests. A major shift in the political structure in Iraq could jeopardize those interests. Iraq is one insurrection away from becoming another Afghanistan.

The third leg of the power triangle is the Shia. Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is of the same religious line as those in the Government of Iran, but he is not their puppet. Iraq has a long tradition of independence and do not march lockstep with anyone. The Iranian government is not happy with this arrangement and would like to see a regime change with a person more amenable to the interests of Tehran. To prevent this, the United States plans on leaving in country a substantial force of 35,000 to 50,000 troops in Advice and Assist Brigades (AAB), with no combat role, to enforce the agreements in place. These troops will be withdrawn gradually until December 31, 2011 when the last of the U.S. troops would leave Iraq per the agreement the Bush administration signed with the Iraqi government in 2008. It is hoped this plan will prevent Iraq’s neighboring countries, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria—and ultimately Russia—from filling the void left by the United States. All of these countries, including Saudi Arabia, are hostile to the United States.

Not only is keeping the troops in Iraq not an option, given our other commitments, but the uncertainty of Iran is problematic. With this option, the troops are as much a hostage to Iran as they are a guarantor. Previous diplomatic moves by the Obama Administration leave in serious question a forceful response to any Iranian move against these troops. Images of hostages being held by Iran for 444 days could be repeated, but on a much larger scale.

If Iran could be eliminated from the equation completely, the entire region becomes more secure. Short of a major move against Iran—by Israel or the United States—Iran will definitely have a part of the long-term peace process. Thus, the “nuclear issue” needs to be resolved.

Afghan War Costs 101

Tomgram: Jo Comerford, Afghan War Costs 101

Posted by Jo Comerford at 10:30am, December 17, 2009.

Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, put the matter this way recently: “[N]ext to Antarctica, Afghanistan is probably the most incommodious place, from a logistics point of view, to be trying to fight a war… It’s landlocked and rugged, and the road network is much, much thinner than in Iraq. Fewer airports, different geography.”  In other words, we might as well be fighting on the moon.  In translation, this means at least one thing: don’t believe any of the figures coming out of the White House or the Pentagon about what this war is going to cost.

As Jo Comerford, executive director of the National Priorities Project points out below, the president’s $30 billion figure for getting those 30,000-plus new surge troops into Afghanistan is going to prove a “through-the-basement estimate.”  As for the dates for getting them in and beginning to get them out?  Well, it’s grain-of-salt time there, too.  According to Steven Mufson and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, some of the fuel storage facilities being built to support the surge troops won’t even be completed by the time the first of them are scheduled to leave the country, 18 months from now.

And keep in mind the endless, and endlessly vulnerable, supply lines on which so much of that fuel — and almost everything else the U.S. military has to have to survive — travels.  Along those mountainous roads, trucks are “lost,” or Taliban-commandeered, or bribes are paid for passage, or some are simply destroyed in what can only be thought of as an underreported supply-line war.  All of this adds immeasurably to the staggering expense of the project.  According to August Cole of the Wall Street Journal, in fuel terms alone, to support a single soldier in Afghanistan costs between $200,000 and $350,000 a year.

And while we’re at it: don’t expect all those surging troops to make it into Afghanistan any time soon.  In the heroic tales of presidential surge deliberations (based on copious White House leaks) that appeared soon after the president’s West Point speech, much was made of how Obama himself had insisted on speeding up the plan to get the extra troops in place.  All would arrive, the White House said, within six months.  That was quickly changed to approximately eight months.  Now, Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, deputy commander of American and NATO forces there, has just announced that it will take nine to eleven months (or maybe even “up to a year”), and that’s if none of the factors that could go wrong do — something not worth putting your money on when it comes to the Afghan War.

If all this leaves you with lingering worries about the success of both the surge and the war, you can put them to rest, however.  NBC’s Richard Engel found a “military schematic,” a single chart from the office of the Joint Chiefs, that offers a visual representation of the military’s full surge/counterinsurgency strategy.  It has to be seen to be believed.  (Just click here.)

It lays out as a flow chart (or perhaps overflow chart would be the more accurate description) just how our war will achieve success.  What could possibly go wrong with such a plan?  It’s hard to imagine.  In the meantime, let Comerford give you a little lesson in the economics of the Afghan War, and what we could have done with that low-ball figure of $30 billion, had we chosen not to fight a war on the moon. Tom

MORE

$57,077.60
Surging by the Minute
By Jo Comerford

$57,077.60. That’s what we’re paying per minute. Keep that in mind — just for a minute or so.

After all, the surge is already on. By the end of December, the first 1,500 U.S. troops will have landed in Afghanistan, a nation roughly the size of Texas, ranked by the United Nations as second worst in the world in terms of human development.

Women and men from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be among the first to head out. It takes an estimated $1 million to send each of them surging into Afghanistan for one year. So a 30,000-person surge will be at least $30 billion, which brings us to that $57,077.60.  That’s how much it will cost you, the taxpayer, for one minute of that surge.

By the way, add up the yearly salary of a Marine from Camp Lejeune with four years of service, throw in his or her housing allowance, additional pay for dependents, and bonus pay for hazardous duty, imminent danger, and family separation, and you’ll still be many thousands of dollars short of that single minute’s sum.

But perhaps this isn’t a time to quibble. After all, a job is a job, especially in the United States, which has lost seven million jobs since December 2007, while reporting record-high numbers of people seeking assistance to feed themselves and/or their families. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 36 million Americans, including one out of every four children, are currently on food stamps.

On the other hand, given the woeful inadequacy of that “safety net,” we might have chosen to direct the $30 billion in surge expenditures toward raising the average individual monthly Food Stamp allotment by $70 for the next year; that’s roughly an additional trip to the grocery store, every month, for 36 million people. Alternatively, we could have dedicated that $30 billion to job creation. According to a recent report issued by the Political Economy Research Institute, that sum could generate a whopping 537,810 construction jobs, 541,080 positions in healthcare, fund 742,740 teachers or employ 831,390 mass transit workers.

For purposes of comparison, $30 billion — remember, just the Pentagon-estimated cost of a 30,000-person troop surge — is equal to 80% of the total U.S. 2010 budget for international affairs, which includes monies for development and humanitarian assistance. On the domestic front, $30 billion could double the funding (at 2010 levels) for the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Or think of the surge this way: if the United States decided to send just 29,900 extra soldiers to Afghanistan, 100 short of the present official total, it could double the amount of money — $100 million — it has allocated to assist refugees and returnees from Afghanistan through the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Leaving aside the fact that the United States already accounts for 45% of total global military spending, the $30 billion surge cost alone would place us in the top-ten for global military spending, sandwiched between Italy and Saudi Arabia. Spent instead on “soft security” measures within Afghanistan, $30 billion could easily build, furnish and equip enough schools for the entire nation.

Continuing this nod to the absurd for just one more moment, if you received a silver dollar every second, it would take you 960 years to haul in that $30 billion. Not that anyone could hold so much money. Together, the coins would weigh nearly 120,000 tons, or more than the poundage of 21,000 Asian elephants, an aircraft carrier, or the Washington Monument. Converted to dollar bills and laid end-to-end, $30 billion would reach 2.9 million miles or 120 times around the Earth.

One more thing, that $30 billion isn’t even the real cost of Obama’s surge. It’s just a minimum, through-the-basement estimate. If you were to throw in all the bases being built, private contractors hired, extra civilians sent in, and the staggering costs of training a larger Afghan army and police force (a key goal of the surge), the figure would surely be startlingly higher. In fact, total Afghanistan War spending for 2010 is now expected to exceed $102.9 billion, doubling last year’s Afghan spending. Thought of another way, it breaks down to $12 million per hour in taxpayer dollars for one year. That’s equal to total annual U.S. spending on all veteran’s benefits, from hospital stays to education.

In Afghan terms, our upcoming single year of war costs represents nearly five times that country’s gross domestic product or $3,623.70 for every Afghan woman, man, and child. Given that the average annual salary for an Afghan soldier is $2,880 and many Afghans seek employment in the military purely out of economic desperation, this might be a wise investment — especially since the Taliban is able to pay considerably more for its new recruits. In fact, recent increases in much-needed Afghan recruits appear to correlate with the promise of a pay raise.

All of this is, of course, so much fantasy, since we know just where that $30-plus billion will be going.  In 2010, total Afghanistan War spending since November 2001 will exceed $325 billion, which equals the combined annual military spending of Great Britain, China, France, Japan, Germany, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.  If we had never launched an invasion of Afghanistan or stayed on fighting all these years, those war costs, evenly distributed in this country, would have meant a $2,298.80 dividend per U.S. taxpayer.

Even as we calculate the annual cost of war, the tens of thousands of Asian elephants in the room are all pointing to $1 trillion in total war costs for Iraq and Afghanistan.  The current escalation in Afghanistan coincides with that rapidly-approaching milestone. In fact, thanks to Peter Baker’s recent New York Times report on the presidential deliberations that led to the surge announcement, we know that the trillion-dollar number for both wars may be a gross underestimate. The Office of Management and Budget sent President Obama a memo, Baker tells us, suggesting that adding General McChrystal’s surge to ongoing war costs, over the next 10 years, could mean — forget Iraq — a trillion dollar Afghan War.

At just under one-third of the 2010 U.S. federal budget, $1 trillion essentially defies per-hour-per-soldier calculations. It dwarfs all other nations’ military spending, let alone their spending on war. It makes a mockery of food stamps and schools. To make sense of this cost, we need to leave civilian life behind entirely and turn to another war. We have to reach back to the Vietnam War, which in today’s dollars cost $709.9 billion — or $300 billion less than the total cost of the two wars we’re still fighting, with no end in sight, or even $300 billion less than the long war we may yet fight in Afghanistan.

Jo Comerford is the executive director of the National Priorities Project. Previously, she served as director of programs at the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and directed the American Friends Service Committee’s justice and peace-related community organizing efforts in western Massachusetts.

[Note: Jo would like to acknowledge the analysis and numbers crunching of Chris Hellman and Mary Orisich, members of the National Priorities Project's research team, without whom this piece would not have been possible.]

Copyright 2009 Jo Comerford

Executive Payola

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has unleashed a radio ad campaign targeting five Republican members of Congress. The ads claim that the Republicans “voted to allow the big banks to pay high-rolling executives unchecked compensation and bonuses.”

But that’s not quite right.

The ads are not based on any explicit vote for “unchecked compensation and bonuses.” Rather, the Democrats are referring to Republican votes against H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which includes a section on executive compensation that Democrats say will require a shareholder vote on compensation.

But the compensation provision was just one section among many in the bill. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the legislation would also broaden the scope of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s authority and create new mechanisms for liquidating certain firms in default, among other things. All told, the CBO estimates the bill would increase budget deficits by $10.7 billion over the 2010-2014 period and by $4.5 billion over the 2010-2019 period.

One of the Republicans attacked in the radio campaign, Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, alluded to the expansion of government spending and oversight while explaining his opposition to the legislation. His press release on his vote said the bill would “provide for a ‘permanent bailout’ fund, create yet another federal agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and also establish a government ‘credit czar’ to dictate which financial products can and cannot be available to American consumers.”

Another target, Rep. Mary Bono Mack of California, said she believed the legislation “sets us on course to a government takeover of our financial institutions.”

The House passed the bill, but the Senate hasn’t yet voted on it.

Posted by Justin Bank on Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 11:26 am
Filed under The FactCheck Wire · Tagged with DCCC, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, financial oversight, radio ad, Wall Street

UN conference wraps up in Copenhagen

As the UN conference wraps up in Copenhagen, things are not looking particularly sunny. A leaked memo from The UN Secretariat is making its way around the web today, which adds up all the commitments made by the various governments around the world. The current best case scenario for a deal seems to leave the planet heading towards 550 parts per million (ppm) of CO2, with a related temperature rise around 3C.

A week ago, the debate was over whether to target 350 ppm (1.5 C) or 450 ppm (2 C). But when you do the math, as they did in the memo, it turns out that the commitments are a few gigatons off, a quantity so large that it is difficult to think of a creative way to express it. How about the equivalent of burning 80 Million acres of rainforest – an area the size of California?

You’ll probably be hearing many calls to acknowledge and celebrate that significant progress has been made in Copenhagen (after all, the ‘do nothing’ scenarios are 700 ppm or more.)  But if you believe the predictions of what this 550 ppm scenario will mean (such as those published by Lord Stern in The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change ), the outcome is the possibility of massive rainforest collapse, extinction for 20-50% of the species on the planet, and a water crisis affecting up to a billion people. And that is if the delegates are able to get a deal done.

To think of this another way: Picture scientists identifying a large meteor hurtling towards earth, with an Impact date in the next 30 years or so.  The longer they wait, the harder it will be to throw the meteor off course. Those who don’t believe the scientists will choose to do nothing. Those who do will start working on building rockets to knock the thing of course as soon as possible. What no one will do is to agree to work on a plan which simply chips off a piece, and lets the rest make impact (unless it is the best they can do.)  But that is exactly what the delegates seem to be working towards in Copenhagen.

So, is what is on the table the best they can do? What is being put together now is a bizarre King Solomon like proposal to split the baby in two. In that tale, the proposal was a test to reveal the truth about the two women who came before the king. Either the UN delegates believe that greenhouse gasses are a planetary threat or they do not. Perhaps it is time for each of them to stand up and be counted.

Let’s all hope for more progress. And let’s also hope that Lord Stern is wrong.

Secret film shows slaughter to the world : Covert operation finally exposes Taiji’s annual dolphin horror

News Articles

Secret film shows slaughter to the world
Covert operation finally exposes Taiji’s annual dolphin horror

By Boyd Harnell
Special to The Japan Times

For the first time ever, graphic feature-length footage of the annual slaughter of some 2,500 dolphins in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, has been captured during a unique yearlong covert operation.

The secret filming by members of the U.S. conservation group Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS) — equipped with state-of-the-art technology is being turned into a major documentary feature film destined for worldwide release this summer (although distribution in Japan is at present not certain).

The story of how this film of the barbaric killing and subsequent butchering of dolphins was made — together with the resulting sale of their meat that massively exceeds Japanese and international limits for mercury content — is told here, exclusively, for the first time anywhere in print.

OPS filming team leader Louie Psihoyos (foreground, above) and assistant director Charles Hambleton in camouflage overlooking Taiji’s “killing cove,” where whalers (below) haul dolphins aboard their boat from the blood-red sea. OPS PHOTO

The footage of the annual seven-month dolphin “drive fisheries” (as they are known in Japan), and of the brutal practices involved in them — as well as the complicity in the killings by various dolphin trainers and officials from Taiji Whale Museum — is sure to shock the world. But whether Japanese people themselves will be able to see the film and arrive at their own conclusions is still by no means certain. The annual dolphin slaughter at Taiji, a town with a population of some 3,500 in the beautiful Yoshino Kumano Kokuritsu Koen national park, follows a regular pattern. First, hunter boats from the Taiji Isana Union (numbering at most 13 skiffs, with two crewmen each) head out to sea and surround pods of dolphins or pilot whales (which are actually large dolphins). Then they drive them into a “capture cove” by banging on long metal bell-ended poles placed in the water to disrupt the dolphins’ sonar, causing them to become completely disorientated and panic. After these animals have spent a night supposedly relaxing in the netted-off capture cove (in an attempt by the whalers to make their meat more tender), they are driven to the neighboring “killing cove.” There, behind huge blue tarps strung across the cove to keep prying eyes away — in much the same way that Japanese police cordon off crime scenes — the dolphins meet their gruesome predawn end.

It is a gory spectacle that Taiji has long striven to keep anyone from seeing — and one that is crucially fueled by the lucrative, worldwide dolphin captivity and display industry. Aquarium operators, some of whom have claimed to be saving dolphins’ lives by selecting a few as performers, pay up to $150,000 per animal.

A baby dolphin leaps to its death on rocks (above) after its mother is killed, and a whaler (below) hauls in another speared victim. OPS PHOTOS

The brutal selection process, though — as shown in the OPS footage — causes many of these highly intelligent marine mammals to die of shock or drown. Meanwhile, cruelty apart, the government-sanctioned slaughter is widely condemned by Japanese scientists, activists and a few Taiji officials, who all cite the serious health issues related to consumption of the dolphins’ mercury-tainted meat. One of the officials OPS filmed was Taiji City Councilman Junichiro Yamashita, who organized certified tests on local dolphin meat bought from retail outlets in the town. The shocking test results revealed mercury and methylmercury levels that were 30 and 16 times, respectively, above advisory levels set by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. As a result, Yamashita hastily distributed newsletters to Taiji residents warning them to avoid consuming the meat — which he called “toxic waste.”

Although a massive blackout of this long-standing butchery of small cetaceans is aided by an apparent self-imposed boycott of the subject by Japan’s vernacular and other English-language media, this newspaper has published a 2 1/2-year-long series of exposes that have won it two international press awards from the Humane Society of the United States.

Now, though, the focus is on the meticulously planned $2.5-million covert operation — the cost of which is estimated to double by the time of the film’s projected release in June.

From their base in Boulder, Colorado, the OPS group made six trips to Wakayama Prefecture, where they were constantly followed by local police and stalked and harassed by Taiji “whalers.” Despite this, their mission was successful. Their high-tech film gear was covertly inserted in the “killing cove” and extracted 16 times thanks to the efforts of the film’s assistant director, Charles Hambleton, and three members of the OPS team. Their hidden, high-definition (HD) cameras successfully recorded the horror that unfolded behind Taiji’s blue tarps. And what they saw was beyond their belief.

Captured dolphins were filmed writhing in pain as Taiji whalers speared them repeatedly or cracked their spines with spiked weapons. Stricken dolphins are also shown thrashing about wildly, blood pouring from their wounds until they finally succumbed. Meanwhile, a number of dolphin trainers and officials from the Taiji Whale Museum are shown cooperating in the slaughter — some even laughing — as the killing cove’s bloodied, ruby-red water swept round into the adjacent capture cove.

Members of a multi-national pro-surfer group at Taiji last October, where ˜ despite harassment by whalers ˜ they formed a prayer circle of protest in the waters of the “killing cove” where dolphins were being speared. OPS PHOTO

Also included in the formidable lineup of high-tech gear for this covert operation were standard-size HD cameras, $50,000 military-grade HD forward-looking infrared (FLIR) P-645 thermal cameras (to detect anyone the whalers had on lookout); hydrophones and HD underwater cameras (to record the dolphins’ underwater throes); unmanned gyro-stabilized helicopters; a number of “shotgun” microphones disguised as tree branches; walkie-talkies; and a host of ancillary equipment. The mission objective was to produce a well-balanced, full-length documentary feature for general worldwide release encompassing all facets of the Taiji dolphin cull and its health risks.

“We succeeded,” Psihoyos said, “but we also came back with an epic horror film resembling a Steven King novel more than a documentary.”

Psihoyos emphasized that the film is neither anti-Japanese nor a “Japan-bashing” production.

In fact, the whole OPS Taiji odyssey began in the winter of 2006. Then, Psihoyos says, “My assistant director, Charles Hambleton, and I had a seven-hour meeting at the mayor’s office with Taiji town officials about making a movie of their town.

“An official, who represented Mayor Kazutaka Sangen, said they were concerned about Westerners showing blood in the cove — that it gave the town an evil look.”

Psihoyos says he told the officials he would not show blood in his film — if they allowed him to position two cameras at the entrance to the cove and to interview the whalers. After mulling it over, though, both officials and whalers cut off contact with Psihoyos and denied him permission to film near the cove. As well, they demanded that he should restrict footage showing blood — apparently fearful that barbarous images may lead to their drive hunts being banned.

Entrails and internal organs of dolphins killed in “drive fisheries” and then brought to land for butchering lie unsuccessfully hidden from view on the floor of the slaughterhouse in Taiji adjacent to the “killing cove” there. BOYD HARNELL PHOTO

In this volatile atmosphere, local police warned the whalers and their supporters off any repeat of violence or threats of violence such as had happened before. In fact, Nigel Barker, a former Australian resident in Taiji, says he was threatened with bodily harm for providing The Japan Times with details of the whalers’ brutal methods. In another incident, Psihoyos said he, too, was threatened by whalers, who said, “We will kill you.”

Amazingly, though, after their talks broke down and the OPS people were leaving their final meeting with Taiji town officials, they were given a detailed map of Taiji, red-lining areas where filming was restricted. This map became a precious tool for planning the group’s covert ops over the next year.

Now the gloves were off. No agreement had been made with the officials and Psihoyos immediately planned a thorough reconnaissance of the Taiji area. Precise vantage points were selected to position their cameras. Several camouflaged camera blinds were set up on the headland adjacent to the Whale Museum that overlooks the killing cove. But their major challenge was figuring out how to insert and extract their “rock cameras,” underwater cameras, hydrophones and hidden microphones without being detected.

Psihoyos contacted Ric O’Barry, who captured and trained dolphins for the 1960s TV series “Flipper,” asking for his help in detailing the whalers’ routine during drive hunts.

O’Barry, head of the international Save Japan Dolphins coalition, had monitored the drives in Taiji for more than five years, and he agreed to be the point man for OPS. O’Barry was already hated by the whalers for his activities, including bringing the media to Taiji to film the brutal drives. In fact, he tells how whalers greet him with throat-cutting gestures when they see him there.

Following O’Barry’s advice, the OPS group implemented their high-risk strategy for filming the covert mission. As the two headlands overlooking the killing cove were constantly monitored by whalers, members faced the loss of expensive gear and possible arrest. That was despite Japanese attorneys telling them that the legality of blocking access to a national park was questionable. They said, though, that police “made up their own rules” in enforcing the blockade.

Ric O’Barry, trainer of the dolphins for the 1960s TV series “Flipper,” and head of the Save Japan Dolphins coalition, wears a video-vest in Tokyo’s hip Shibuya district showing graphic images of dolphins being killed in Taiji.

The OPS group was headquartered in hotel rooms in the area, where their missions were planned and piles of pricey equipment occupied most of the space. Two vans were rented to haul their weighty gear to their target locations. Another small, unobtrusive rental car driven by OPS member Joe Chisholm was used for scouting — mostly for monitoring the Taiji harbor area to check if drive boats were out. Chisholm also kept an eye on the roads to detect whether police were following the group. Altogether, the incredible challenges of making this film elevated it to a major undertaking on a scale never before attempted.

Throughout this buildup period, drive fisheries were being conducted during daylight. If the whalers were successful, captured dolphins would be trapped in the holding cove sealed off with nets. Before daybreak the next day, men in motorboats would herd the panicked animals into the killing cove of no return.

The horror of the dolphins’ final moments there were recorded not only by the “rock cameras” above the waterline, but also from below by using underwater microphones and an underwater “blood-cam” HD camera devised by OPS high-tech guru Simon Hutchins, which yielded graphic footage of the sea slowly turning red as the killings continued.

To make this possible, OPS called on Mandy-Rae Cruickshank, a seven-time world free-diving champion, and her famed coach and husband, Kirk Krack, to plant the devices. (Cruikshank recently broke her own world record by free-diving down to 88 meters and back in 2 min. 48 sec.) Both eagerly accepted the risky challenge.

“Good to go Mandy,” crackled through the two-way. It was 3 a.m. The OPS support group on land had just completed a thermal-imaging sweep of the capture and killing coves. No security was detected. As the OPS van dropped the two off above the holding cove’s small beach, and sped away, the free-diving pair, clad in wet suits, entered the water. The moon was full, helping them to see obstacles.

“Tensions were high . . . we had to get around a barbed-wire fence and hike down over some boulders to get into the water,” Mandy said. “Then we swam around to the killing cove. It was about 40 feet (12 meters) deep. We had an underwater camera and hydrophone, and we used a flashlight to get a reference point so we knew where to retrieve them from after we made a reconnaissance, but we had to turn it on and off quickly to escape detection. Then Kirk and I put down the devices fairly easily.”

On their return to the beach in the holding cove, Cruickshank said, “We saw a car going into the parking lot, so we hid in bushes until they left and then we waited for the van to pick us up.”

Before that mission and again afterward, she said, “We were constantly monitored by police.”

A few days later, Cruikshank said that from that same beach in the capture cove they saw a pod of 40 herded round to the killing cove, where the slaughter began. “They had separated the babies, some only as big as my arm, and then the emerald water in front of us began to turn red and you could hear the dolphins screaming. One stabbed dolphin tried to escape, and it made it over two nets from the killing cove and was heading toward the beach in the capture cove with blood streaming from it. We saw the last two breaths it took — it was impossible not to cry.

“The babies were led out to sea and were either killed or set free to die of starvation,” she said.

Meanwhile, Psihoyos’ team was embedded in their camera blinds on overlooking hillsides, sometimes for as long as 17 hours a day. Dressed in full camouflage gear and wearing face paint, they looked like military sniper teams. Black masking tape covered reflective surfaces on their cameras to avoid detection. For over 3 1/2 weeks, the OPS team survived on a daily ration of 3 hours’ sleep. When filming from the camera blinds, they subsisted on energy bars and water. Whaler security men, always wary of outsiders monitoring their hunts, constantly scanned the high terrain, the bushes and undergrowth surrounding the two coves, their flashlights searching for intruders.

Fake rocks to disguise hidden cameras are sculpted out of foam (top) at Kerner Optical in California (formerly George “Star Wars” Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic Shop); world free-diving champion Mandy-Rae Cruickshank (above), who, together with her husband Kirk Krack (below, in thermal-image photo) secretly positioned many of the high-tech devices to record what happens in Taiji’s “killing cove,” OPS PHOTOS

Psihoyos recounted his attempt in setting up the initial camera blind in a spot overlooking the killing cove. “It was a moonless night and I had a full-size def (HD) camera in tow with a large tripod. I scaled a cliff and descended on a rope and perched on a shelf as big as an average office desk — but at a slope of about 30 degrees. “I braced my feet against a small tree and didn’t move them for the next 15 1/2 hours,” he said, adding, “the lagoon was filled with pilot whales — they made a protective circle around their young. I shot frantic clips from my unstable perch as I saw whales killed and dragged away.” Reacting to these brutal scenes, Psihoyos recalled thinking, “If there’s a god, don’t let their lives be wasted in vain.” Originally, OPS’s hidden rock cameras focused on the killing cove from surrounding headlands could only film for three hours, but a high-tech piece of kit they acquired “turbocharged” the batteries to allow them to film for 11 hours continuously, ensuring they would capture all facets of the cull. Indeed, contrary to their statements, the Taiji whalers seem unconcerned about killing female dolphins and their calves — as is graphically depicted in one of the film’s sequences. However, along with the film’s horrific images, Psihoyos also interviews on camera Japanese scientists and others involved in the mercury health issues surrounding dolphin meat. Dr. Shigeo Ekino, a prominent researcher from Kumamoto University’s Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Kyushu, compared the high mercury levels found in contaminated fish in Minamata, Japan, in the 1950s during the world’s worst mercury-pollution disaster, to levels of mercury currently found in dolphin meat.

Ekino, who was filmed holding a tested sample of Taiji dolphin meat, said: “This dolphin meat is 98.9 ppm (parts per million of total mercury) — which is higher than the level (of the fish and shellfish) in Minamata Bay. It’s a clear danger!”

His sample was 247.25 times the Japanese health ministry’s advisory level of 0.4 ppm for total mercury.

Tetsuya Endo, a professor at Hokkaido’s Health Science University, also conducted mercury tests on dolphin meat, and his results were published in 2005. In a filmed OPS interview, he said: “I found 100 ppm of total mercury in . . . bottlenose dolphin and 2,000 ppm of total mercury in the liver of an unknown (dolphin) species. All of it was toxic.” In fact, the higher figure was 5,000 times the health ministry’s advisory level for mercury.

In another OPS interview, Psihoyos asked Hideki Moronuki, deputy director of the Far Seas Fisheries Division of the central government’s Fisheries Agency, “How are the dolphins killed now? . . . and are the dolphins being dragged around by their tails during the selection process for captive specimens?”

Assistant director Charles Hambleton fits an HD camera into a fake rock set to capture the “killing cove” killings. OPS PHOTO

Moronuki is filmed replying, “Fishermen are using specifically made knife (sic), and put it through the spine . . . most of the animals are killed instantly.” As for allegations of them being dragged by their tails, he says, “That’s not happening anymore.” When Psihoyos showed Moronuki a film clip of the inhumane, random spearing of dolphins while others were dragged by their tails — all filmed recently — he froze and told Psihoyos: “I have to instruct them again. They are using inappropriate method to treat dolphin.” At Psihoyos’ request, Moronuki gave him a hair sample to be tested for mercury.

The result: a readout of 5.874 ppm of total mercury, which is 14.68 times the health ministry’s advisory level.

Moronuki’s response was peculiar: “I was very happier to know that I have eaten so much fish which make me much healthier than meat-eating peoples.”

Another dramatic highlight of the footage shows a surfer invasion in Taiji last October led by legendary Australian pro surfer Dave Rastovich, along with a few TV celebrities and some surfer buddies. They paddled into the cove where dolphins were being slaughtered and formed a prayer circle. Shocked by the atrocity, they finally retreated when whalers in skiffs came and prodded them with poles and sharp-hooked gaffs.

Producers of the OPS documentary are aiming for a worldwide release in June, including a special Japanese version creatively marketed and circulated to ensure maximum viewing even if major distributors turn it down. The film’s narrator will be an actor selected from Hollywood’s “A list,” they said.

Referring to his hopes the film will benefit the dolphins, Psihoyos said: “Dolphins are the only wild animals known to rescue humans. With this film, we’d like to come to their rescue and, in the process, save ourselves.”

Pointedly, just months before the surfers went into the killing cove at Taiji, their leader Dave Rastovich had survived a shark attack in Australia when a dolphin swam between him and the shark and allowed him to escape.

Taiji – A small fishing village with a dirty secret

In Japan, fishermen round up and slaughter hundreds and even thousands of dolphins and other small whales each year.

In the small fishing village of Taiji, entire schools of dolphins are driven into a hidden cove after a prolonged chase. Once trapped inside the cove, the fishermen kill the dolphins, slashing their throats with knives or stabbing them with spears. The water turns red with their blood, and the air fills with their screams.

This brutal massacre — the largest scale dolphin kill in the world — goes on for six months of every year. Even more scandalous, members of the international dolphin display industry take advantage of the dolphin slaughter to obtain some few, show-quality dolphins for use in captive dolphin shows and dolphin swim programs.

It is commonly assumed that Japanese fishermen hunt dolphins to supply a small minority of Japanese people with dolphin meat. But unlike the expensive whale meat, dolphin meat is not considered a delicacy in Japan, and the real reason the Japanese government issues permits to kill dolphins by the thousands every year has nothing to do with food culture. It has to do with pest control. As shocking as it sounds, some Japanese government officials view dolphins as pests to be eradicated in huge numbers. During a meeting at Taiji City Hall, the fishermen of Taiji admitted this to us. “We don’t kill the dolphins primarily for their meat. We kill them as a form of pest control,” they told us. In other words, killing the competition is their way of preserving the ocean’s fish for themselves.

Most likely in order to push the food culture issue even further, the Japanese government recently introduced pilot whale meat to children’s school lunch programs, despite the fact that the meat is tainted with mercury and not fit for human consumption. The Japanese government and the dolphin hunters do not warn the Japanese people of this danger, although the dolphin meat should be labeled as toxic. Much of the tainted dolphin meat ends up as counterfeit whale meat in Tokyo and other large cities.

Science has established that dolphins are highly intelligent and complex marine mammals. How can “pest control” on dolphins continue with so little opposition from the Japanese people and the outside world? The answer is secrecy. Since we first traveled to Japan in 2003 to document the dolphin hunt and expose it to the world, the fishermen have become increasingly paranoid about being photographed and filmed. Today, they hide the dolphin slaughter behind barbed wire, ropes and tarpaulin. Killing the dolphins before daylight breaks, they station guards at the mouth of the killing cove to ensure that no one witnesses the blood bath.

The fishermen say they kill the dolphins “quickly and humanely.” That’s an outright lie. The methods used to kill the dolphins are so savage, it’s hard to believe it unless you witness it for yourself. And once you’ve seen it, the images and sounds of the screaming dolphins never go away. The fishermen know that the world will be outraged when the truth gets out. And so, guided by their government, they hide behind phrases such as “food culture” and “tradition.” They even once told us they are proud of what they do. If they had told us they were having fun while killing dolphins, we would have believed them. We have heard them laugh out loud as they were throwing spears at the dolphins and hauling them ashore with ropes, or dragging still live dolphins by their tail flukes to be slaughtered. If they were really proud of this, then why do they go to such extreme measures hiding it? Why won’t they even let their own people know about the hunt? We asked them this once, and the answer was: “It is none of their business.” But it is their business. The Japanese people have every right to know about the dolphin slaughter. And they have a right to know about the mercury-poisoned dolphin meat that is being fed to their children.

The secret:

It is shocking but true: The dolphin hunt in Japan is supported by people from the international dolphinarium industry. The annual dolphin slaughter provides an easy way for dolphinariums to obtain young, unblemished dolphins, suitable for commercial exploitation in captive dolphin shows and swim-with-dolphins programs. During our documentary work in Japan, we have witnessed dolphin trainers assisting the dolphin hunters during the slaughter process, selecting the best-looking dolphins for themselves and letting the dolphin hunters kill and butcher the rest.

Historically, the capture of dolphins has been highly secretive and rarely photographed, and for decades the multi-billion dollar dolphin captivity industry has claimed that they are capturing and displaying dolphins so that they can sensitize the public to the necessity of protecting dolphins in nature. “We love dolphins,” is the industry’s first line of defense when confronted with the questionable ethics of capturing and confining these free ranging, social and highly complex marine mammals. These very same dolphin trainers and veterinarians who claim to “love dolphins” have showed us the dark side of the dolphin captivity industry. The public will be shocked to learn that the Japanese dolphin massacres and the use of dolphins for public display are strongly connected: The whalers and dolphin trainers, working side by side to exploit the dolphins in the most cruel manner imaginable, have a symbiotic relationship. They both rely on one another to stay in business.

It all comes down to money. A dolphin slaughtered for its meat will bring in about $700. Dolphins captured during a Taiji dolphin drive have been sold to dolphinariums for as much as $154,000 per dolphin! The dolphin killers simply would not be able to prosper on the annual dolphin slaughter if members of the zoo and aquarium industry were not paying top dollar for live dolphins.

Some of the people who are doing business with the whalers in Taiji are westerners. We notice two of them several times during our patrols in Taiji and are able to photograph them at “Dolphin Base,” a captive dolphin facility in Taiji. When the two western dolphin trainers spot us, they scatter like roaches when you turn on the light. The trainers are as paranoid about being caught in the act as the dolphin killers are.

One of the dolphin brokers that do business in Taiji is US citizen Dr. Ted Hammond of Hammond Consultants, Hong Kong Limited. Records are available documenting Hammond trafficking in live dolphins from Taiji. Dr. Hammond’s website can be viewed here: http://www.hammondcon.com/design.htm

Evangelist Oral Roberts dies in Calif. at age 91

Obit

By Justin Juozapavicius
The Associated Press

Posted: 12/16/2009 01:00:00 AM MST

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Roberts died of complications from pneumonia in Newport Beach, Calif., according to his spokesman, A. Larry Ross. The evangelist was hospitalized after a fall on Saturday. He had survived two heart attacks in the 1990s and a broken hip in 2006.

Roberts was a pioneer who broadcast his spirit-filled revivals on television, a new frontier for religion when he started in the 1950s. He was also a forerunner of the controversial “prosperity gospel” that has come to dominate televangelism. The evangelist’s “Seed-Faith” theology held that those who give to God will get things in return.

“If God had not, in His sovereign will, raised up the ministry of Oral Roberts, the entire charismatic movement might not have occurred,” said Jack Hayford, president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, in a statement.

Healing at 17 set course

Roberts overcame tuberculosis at age 17, when his brother carried him to a revival meeting where a healing evangelist was praying for the sick. Roberts said he was healed of the illness and of his youthful stuttering. He said that it was then that he heard God tell him he should build a university based on the Lord’s authority and the Holy Spirit.

Roberts rose from humble tent revivals to become one of the country’s most famous preachers.

He gave up a local pastorate in Enid in 1947 to enter an evangelistic ministry in Tulsa to pray for the healing of the whole person — the body, mind and spirit. The philosophy led many to call him a “faith healer,” a label he rejected with the comment: “God heals — I don’t.”

By the 1960s and ’70s, he was reaching millions around the world through radio, television, publications and personal appearances.

He remained on TV into the new century, co-hosting the program “Miracles Now” with son Richard. He published dozens of books and conducted hundreds of crusades. A famous photograph showed him working at a desk with a sign on it reading, “Make no little plans here.”

He credited his oratorical skills to his faith, saying, “I become anointed with God’s word, and the spirit of the Lord builds up in me like a coiled spring. By the time I’m ready to go on, my mind is razor-sharp. I know exactly what I’m going to say and I’m feeling like a lion.”

Unity of body, mind and spirit became the theme of Oral Roberts University. The campus is a Tulsa landmark, with its space-age buildings laden with gold paint, including a 200-foot prayer tower and a 60-foot bronze statue of praying hands.

Rocky times, rebuilding

His ministry hit rocky times in the 1980s. There was controversy over his City of Faith medical center, a $250 million investment that eventually folded, and Roberts’ widely ridiculed proclamation that God would “call me home” if he failed to meet a fundraising goal of $8 million. A law school he founded also was shuttered.

Semiretired in recent years and living in California, he returned to Tulsa in October 2007 as scandal roiled Oral Roberts University. His son Richard Roberts, who succeeded him as ORU president, faced allegations of spending university money on shopping sprees and other luxuries at a time the institution was more than $50 million in debt.

Richard Roberts resigned as president in November 2007, marking the first time since Oral Roberts University was chartered in 1963 that a member of the Roberts family would not be at its helm. The rocky period for the evangelical school was eased when billionaire Oklahoma City businessman Mart Green donated $70 million and helped run the school in the interim, pledging to restore the public’s trust.

By the fall of 2009, things were looking up, with officials saying tens of millions of dollars’ worth of debt had been paid off and enrollment was up slightly.

In September, a frail-looking Oral Roberts attended the ceremony when the school’s new president, Mark Rutland, was formally inaugurated.

“He was not only my earthly father; he was my spiritual father and mentor,” son Richard Roberts said in a statement.

About Face

Facebook Suggests You Lie, Break Its Own Terms Of Service To Keep Your Privacy

Jason Kincaid

TechCrunch.com
Tuesday, December 15, 2009; 4:13 PM

Here’s a new one. As Facebook continues to grapple with the negative press over its privacy overhaul, it’s now suggesting a new way to protect your personal information: lie about it. At least, that’s what Barry Schnitt, Facebook’s Director of Corporate Communications and Public Policy, told the Wall Street Journal in an article this evening. From the story:

Facebook also made public formerly private info such as profile pictures, gender, current city and the friends list. (Mr. Schnitt suggests that users are free to lie about their hometown or take down their profile picture to protect their privacy; in response to users’ complaints, the friends list can now be restricted to be viewed only by friends).

Of course, this directly violates Facebook’s own Terms of Service, which stipulate that users may not provide false information.

Registration and Account Security Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.

Update: I reached out to Facebook, and Schnitt has clarified his position:

I think WSJ is paraphrasing. What I said is profile picture and current city are optional. You don?t have to include a profile picture or you can include a picture of your dog or anything you like. Similarly, you don?t have to indicate your current city or you can indicate that your current city is ?Atlantis?, ?Valhalla? or, again, anything you like. We hope people will use accurate information if they are comfortable doing so because that information helps them to be found by their friends, which is part of the point of joining the site.

Facebook has always been heavily reliant on its users being honest, and it has thrived because of it. It was among the first social networks to mandate the use of real names rather than aliases, which has made it easier to find friends and also forces users to take more responsibility for their actions. If Facebook is actually going to start suggesting falsifying or removing information as a means to maintain privacy, then it’s making a serious mistake.

I’ve made no secret of my dislike for Facebook’s privacy overhaul. And while there have been plenty of articles questioning Facebook’s motivations, I think we’ve yet to really see the true backlash begin. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

MORE

The Facebook Privacy Fiasco Begins

by Jason Kincaid on December 9, 2009

Today Facebook finally started to roll out a new set of privacy controls. These tools, many months in the making, are designed to help simplify the site’s notoriously confusing privacy options. But alongside them Facebook is also rolling out a “Transition Tool” that promotes Everyone updates as the new default. In other words, Facebook is giving up its reputation as a ‘private’ social network — where the default is to restrict access to everything that is shared — in favor of something that can challenge Twitter head on. And, as I wrote last July, it may well be a disaster in the making.

Facebook is spinning the news as a win for users. They’re supposedly getting more control than ever over what they’re sharing, and it’s easier than ever to control it. But that’s not the real story. Marshall Kirkpatrick over at ReadWriteWeb has nailed it: this is Facebook’s move to push people to share with the public.

For those who haven’t been following the six month buildup to today’s announcement: last June, Facebook rolled out a new feature called the Everyone update. In short, this is Facebook’s answer to Twitter. Unlike other content posted to Facebook which is managed by the privacy features the social network built its reputation on, ‘Everyone’ updates are accessible to the web at large. That means Facebook can leverage it for real-time search, and can also syndicate it to other places, like Google and Bing. The feature has been available in the site’s privacy settings since last summer, but most people didn’t use it (and probably didn’t even know it was there). The new privacy launch today puts this as the default option for many users.

Much of the general press is going to simply regurgitate Facebook’s press release, which boasts that Facebook is giving users more control than ever:

“Setting a new standard in user control… calling on its more than 350 million users to review and update their privacy setting… As users move through the Transition Tool, they’ll be presented with an opportunity to “Learn More. Through this link, they’ll reach Facebook’s new Privacy Center, a comprehensive guide that helps users understand and control how they share information.”

Sounds great, right? Let’s get one thing straight: Facebook is forcing users to choose their new privacy options to promote the Everyone update, and to clear itself of any potential wrongdoing going forward. If there is significant backlash against the social network, it can claim that users willingly made the choice to share their information with everyone. That’s why there are all of these notifications informing users about what these privacy features do. And it’s why there’s now a Privacy Center. The vast majority of users will ignore this information the same way 80% of them have ignored privacy settings in the first place. But Facebook will still be able to claim that it did its best to get their informed consent.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation agrees:

“These new “privacy” changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data.”

Facebook first announced many of these changes in July. In the five months since then, I’ve asked Facebook representatives a few times what the hold up was. The response? “We want to get it right.” At the time, I suspected that Facebook might be backpedaling from its decision to promote Everyone updates the same way it started backpedaling from the Twitter-inspired redesign. That clearly wasn’t the case.

So what happens next? Facebook will doubtless see the same kind of knee-jerk reaction it gets for any change it makes. But even that will be smaller than the outrage over this year’s redesign, because the changes are much less in-your-face. It’ll probably take a bit longer for the real problems to begin.

First, we’ll hear some reports of people accidentally sharing too much in their updates, only to have a prospective employer find that information when they run a name check on Facebook. Similar stories have been around for ages, so most people probably won’t be alarmed. The real trouble will start when Facebook starts sharing these status updates with the search engines and other third parties. Bing will be getting access to Facebook ‘Everyone’ status updates in early 2010. Google will only have access to Fan Pages at first, but don’t be surprised if they cough up the cash for access to the status updates too. Both of these sites cache data. And you can be sure more sites and applications will be pulling in these updates too.

Up until now, Facebook alone has maintained control over the vast majority of content uploaded to the site. Get rid of it on Facebook, and it’s usually gone, at least from the prying eyes of a stranger. If you’re about to apply for a new job and want to go through and clean up your update history, you can still do that. But with ‘Everyone’, that changes. From Facebook’s privacy policy:

If you delete “everyone” content that you posted on Facebook, we will remove it from your Facebook profile, but have no control over its use outside of Facebook.

In other words, if users do wind up sharing far more than they intended to, Facebook can’t do much to repair the damage. Will this have a major impact on Facebook’s success? Probably not. But people may no longer perceive it as a private site, which is what made it popular in the first place.

Mystery Plane Carries North Korean Holiday Cheer

December 15, 2009:

On December 11th, the U.S. alerted Thailand that a Georgian Il-76 transport, flying from North Korea, to refuel in Thailand, had false documentation, and other problems worth looking into. When the transport arrived, and Thai police checked, they found that the manifest listed the cargo as oil drilling machinery, but the stuff was actually 30 tons of weapons. The crew was arrested, for carrying weapons, and false documents, and the cargo was removed to a safe location.

At first, the crew refused to say what their final destination once. After extensive interrogation, one crew member said the destination was Ukraine. That made no sense. Neither did what the Thai police reported about the cargo. They said it was missiles (that would make sense, if they were high end stuff) and RPG rockets (that would not make sense, because this is cheap stuff). While the Il-76 can carry fifty tons of cargo, air freight  is over a hundred times more expensive that shipping by sea. Which is how North Korea normally smuggles out arms shipments. This air shipment was also avoiding as many countries as possible (flying over international water most of the way from North Korea).

The only reason such cheap weapons are flown by air is when you want to deliver them to criminals (or warlords/rebels in some strife torn part of the world) who are not based near the sea. In any event, North Korea has been busted once more for smuggling weapons, and more interesting details will no doubt emerge from this operation..

A recent UN investigation concluded that North Korea was continuing to export weapons, and using the hard currency obtained to import luxury items for the ruling elite of the communist police state. The UN report detailed North Korean use of false documents and the switching of cargo containers to different ships to throw off investigators.

The North Koreans have also had to come up with a large array of subterfuges to get around growing restrictions on their use of the international banking system. The North Koreans are still getting the weapons out, and the money back. But they are increasingly getting caught. It’s an international game of hide and seek that is hurting the North Korean arms trade, but not stopping it. The report points towards implementing more restrictions on North Korean trade. To be really effective, this requires lots of cooperation from China, where many of the North Korean evasion takes place. For example, North Korean ships go to Chinese ports, where arms cargos (usually in standard shipping containers) are secretly switched to other ships.

In the past, private gunrunners have been known to use Russian made, Cold War surplus, air transports to carry weapons to customers in Africa. The Air Traffic Control in Africa is spotty, and local officials respond well to bribes. Most of those private gunrunners have been put out of business, or retired before they got caught. But North Korea is still in business. The Il-76 grounded by the Thais was recently sold by a Kazakh firm to another in Georgia. The crew consisted of four Kazakhs and one Belorussian.

This story isn’t over yet, but its direction seems pretty clear.

Fighting For The Dry, Mountainous Nothing In The Middle Of Nowhere

December 15, 2009: American commanders believe the 30,000 additional U.S. troops, plus increases in Afghan and NATO forces, will enable the Taliban to be crushed within a year. But after that, Afghanistan will require economic and military assistance for at least twenty years, to bring sustained peace to the country. The plan is to turn over security to the central government within five years. Initially, through the middle of next year, there will be more violence. The Taliban and drug gangs will not go gently into the night. They will resist energetically, many choosing to fight to the death.

The basic problem with Afghanistan is that it’s a place that has never had a central government in the Western sense, and has a long tradition of warlords scrambling to build temporary kingdoms, that are eventually brought down by tribal politics, other warlords or, more rarely, by foreign invaders. The foreigners don’t come along very often, because there’s not much worth conquering in Afghanistan. It’s a dry, mountainous nothing in the middle of nowhere. The only thing that keeps Western nations interested is all the heroin coming out of the place, and the Islamic terrorists who would like to set up sanctuaries for training and preparing attacks against Western targets. If the drug gangs and Islamic terrorists went somewhere else, then Afghanistan would be a nowhere on the media and diplomatic landscape, just like its Central Asian neighbors are at the moment (when was the last time you saw headline news about Tajikistan or Uzbekistan?)

Increasing the size of Afghan security forces fifty percent (282,000)  in the next two years, and doubling their size in five years, is key for pacifying the country. Given the widespread poverty, the army and police are being turned into a huge make-work/education project, which also provides security from the bad guys (bandits, as well as Taliban and drug gangs). This effort is more about training, than anything else. Troops are not only being taught military and police skills, most of them are being taught to read and write, and do basic arithmetic. By entering a “pay race” with the drug gangs and Taliban, the Americans (who are paying for most of this) are offering the troops not just a higher monthly pay, but the kind a training program the country has never seen before. The main American weapons here are not guns and aircraft, but cash and classrooms. The new starting pay for army recruits is $240 a month. But the Taliban and drug gangs will pay up to $300. So more raises will have to be made, until the bad guys can’t keep up. The big edge the military has is the educational program and, in theory, their policy of protecting, rather than persecuting (which the Taliban and drug gangs do as a matter of course) the civilians. It’s all very strange for most Afghans. You have these invincible foreign warriors and all their magical weapons. Then you have a national army and police force, two things rarely seen in Afghanistan, that pay well and teach you to read and do other useful stuff. Then there is the opium and heroin, which more Afghans can now afford, and these Taliban fanatics, who want to take all this new stuff away and return to the old days of starvation, ignorance and wife beating. Strange days in Afghanistan.

The billions of dollars being poured into Afghanistan each year has created new wealth for many Afghans. That wealth tends to hang out in the cities, where it is safer to enjoy the good life. But the gangsters and Islamic radicals go where the money is, and Kabul has a growing crime problem. Afghanistan has a long tradition of admiring poor men who successfully steal from (or just kill) rich men. “Robin Hood” resonates with Afghans, big time. But the main reason Afghan Robin Hoods “steal from the rich and give to the poor” is because the poor have nothing to steal, and you want to share out some of your loot, because the poor do have weapons, and are inclined to do a Robin Hood on you if you become too fat and happy.

The Taliban have found it very hard to launch successful attacks on the foreign or Afghan troops. One thing the foreigners are very good at is security and intelligence. The old timers, who fought the Russians in the 1980s, are shocked at the differences. In response, the Taliban concentrate on assassination (to try to intimidate key security officials into cooperating, or at least not being too aggressive) and spectacular attacks designed to attract a lot of media attention. All this means that there must be fewer attacks, because each time the Taliban concentrate men or resources, they risk being spotted and killed. Some Taliban commanders ignore this advice, and this is usually the reason for those regular reports of dozens of Taliban being killed. Actually, those incidents don’t get as much media attention as do urban bombing attacks, that usually kill fewer people, but can be heard and visited by Western journalists (who generally avoid trips into the countryside.) The Taliban also like to attack checkpoints on roads, although this can be very dangerous. The Americans often anticipate these operations, and set up a counter-ambush. It was so much simpler, and safer, with the Russians back in the 1980s.

December 11, 2009:

The mayor of Kabul, Abdul Ahad Sayebi,  resigned from his job, as a result of being convicted of corruption last week (and sentenced to four years in prison). The mayor tried to ignore the conviction, apparently in the belief that during the appeals process, he could bribe enough people to make it all go away.  But Sayebi was under the spotlight, especially as he was one of the most blatant practitioners of corruption in the capital. There are many more like Sayebi, and clearing them all out will be very difficult. What Westerners call corruption, Afghans see as taking advantage of an opportunity. What Westerners see as a crime, Afghans see as common sense. There is a real failure to communicate here. And it’s a big problem, because even the use of cash to fight the Taliban is hobbled by the corruption. Commander steal the pay for their troops, or sell food and equipment meant for their troops. That’s assuming the cash for all this even gets past the politicians and bureaucrats in the Defense Ministry.

December 8, 2009:

The U.S. Air Force admitted that it was operating a new, jet powered UAV out of Kandahar. They described the aircraft as the RQ-170. It has the same flying wing shape as the B-2 bomber. It’s there for testing, and has been in development for over six years. It may be flying over Iran, which would be a real test for a stealthy UAV.