Adam Curtis’ video “Bitter Lake” has an interesting little aside about some unexpected effects of geo-engineering in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. It raised the water table, which raised salinity closer to the surface of farmlands, which had the result of killing certain crops, but not others.
Content warning: War, Death, Violent imagery.
The other day I posted about the Iraqi army advance on Mosul, and observed that one of the vehicles in the picture appeared to be a US-made M-1 Abrams main battle tank.
I didn’t think that, at $5 million apiece, and still being fairly high-tech, the US would let gear like that out into the wild. TL;DR: I hadn’t realized how badly the warmongers in Washington have been screwing up.
[Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t seen Seven Samurai, I am going to drop an important plot-point. And what’s wrong with you?]
I grew up reading about feats of derring-do, famous last stands, and martial arts philosophy. My favorite movie was, and remains, “Seven Samurai” by Akira Kurosawa – it’s an extended meditation on the different aspects of military honor, courage, despair, humor, and the fleeting moments of peace that warriors can occasionally snatch out of the mud and blood and awfulness.
Trigger warning: war and death, death imagery
Dickey Chapelle died when I was a kid and the news of her death was how “war photographer” entered my mental landscape. When I was a kid and started getting interested in military history, I was mostly inclined toward the Napoleonic Wars because of the gorgeous uniforms and the amazing paintings by Meissonier and David (I spent a lot of time at the Musee Des Invalides…)
Florian smiled around the edge of his beer and said, wryly, “We Swiss are not pacifists because we are weak; it’s because we were rental soldiers in the dark age and renaissance. Fighting for your own selfish reasons is bad marketing.”
About a decade ago, I did a series of talks at various conferences entitled “cyberwar is bullshit” – the problem, I felt, was that the US was talking about being deeply afraid of cyberattack from Eurasia (or was it Eastasia?) but there was considerable irresponsible talk about “weapons of mass destruction-like capability.” Industry insiders like myself wound up divided as to whether it was likely/practical, or good marketing/a chance to make a fast buck. There were a lot of fast bucks made.
I was struck speechless to read that the Iraqi army has brought its handful of TOS-1 “Buratino” thermobaric rocket launchers into the field at Mosul.
A few years ago, I read a book about the big terrorist bombing in New York. You know, the one in 1920. And it got me interested in the turmoil of the time – a time when, largely due to the depression, Americans were realizing that capitalism wasn’t quite their friend after all. So I wound up reading about the bonus army and how they were suppressed with cavalry and tanks commanded by heroes.
My dad, the real historian in the family, used to say that the history of a time cannot really be told until all the bodies are buried and the forgotten memoirs come bubbling to the surface. When he first told me that, as a kid, I wasn’t really ready to understand him.
September 26, 1983, I was a sophomore, which meant that the day probably passed in a blur for me. I had a routine: coffee and donuts at the snackery in the student union, then to the computer terminal room to check my email.