The silver lining is sweaty
This is a fun story coming out of Iraq. According to this NYT article the Atlanta-based Peachtree road race didn’t just take place in Atlanta this year. Deployed soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait were permitted to enter the 10k footrace, laying out their own courses and keeping their own times. You know, it sounds like a lot of fuss for nothing but I bet this was fun. After all, I really like the idea of running 10 kilometers in a place where the temperature is 95 degrees farenheit at 6 in the morning.
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Dissolvable Plastic
One of my favorite podcasts, 60-Second Science (available at Scientific American and iTunes), spoke about research being conducted by the University of Southern Mississippi to make stretch wrap plastic that is dissolvable in saltwater. In a nutshell, by incorporating hydrophilic molecules like carboxylic acid into the plastic, the saltwater can break it down within 5 months to CO2 and water. The US military is funding the project so that on-board storage of plastic waste can be reduced by safely dumping it overboard after some minor preparations. For a more complete run-through of the application and hurdles of this research, please check out this article from sciencefriday.com.
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Mercenaries and more
To understand Iraq, we need to know more than the headlines and the sound bites. We need to hear what people there have to say and what they think is happening. Well here’s part of that puzzle. If you care at all about what’s happening in the world, you need to watch this video:
Incensed? Outraged? Well, you probably should be. A lot of what’s going on in Iraq with private contractors is still coming to the surface. I didn’t know that one of the big reasons for poor soldier retention is contractor presence in Iraq, I didn’t even know about the contractors. If you find yourself looking for more information, the rest of the documentary can be found here and of course there’s the new award-winning book from Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater.
Via Truthdig
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VideoVets: interviews with veterans
Oliver Stone and MoveOn.org have teamed up to create a 30-second TV spot focusing on “bringing the troops home” from Iraq. The project, called VideoVets will be composed by Stone, himself a veteran, from the most popular interview voted on by the viewing public. My personal favorite interview is with Sgt Sam Schultz of the Indiana National Guard. When he arrived in Iraq, he was given a white Chevy pickup truck as his primary fighting vehicle which he later modified to carry a machine gun in the bed. Says Sgt Schultz: “It’s important to end this war, because we are the wrong people to fight this war… we’re doing more harm than good.”
Thanks to the folks at Truthdig for their article about this project.
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Iraq: the pay-off
“2/27/2005 Taji, Iraq Claim on behalf of Iraqi [Redacted] by father. Father was driving his family towards Taji. Near a gas station, a US convoy pulled up beside him and behind him. A convoy shot into the car, killing his daughter and wounding his wife and other daughter. The car was also damaged. Finding: lack of evidence of US involvement. Claim denied for lack of evidence despite the presence of three eyewitnesses (father, wife, and daughter).”
The above excerpt comes from records obtained by the ACLU relating claims of compensation by civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan who have been in some way injured by the armed forces in their countries. With all the bombing, convoying and raiding we do over there, it’s no surprise that civilian property gets destroyed or even that people are occasionally killed. What I didn’t count on is that we have a system for dealing with that. It’s called the Foreign Claims Act and so far the United States has awarded over $32 million to Iraqi and Afghani civilians for injuries, wrongful death, and damage to property.
The above picture by New York Times photographer Joao Silva shows just how cruel the idea of monetary compensation for life is. This New York Times report details in full the way in which civilians can file a claim and provides a number of examples of just how much an Iraqi life is officially worth to the United States, sometimes as little as $500. It’s well worth reading, as well as looking over some of the claims at the ACLU website.
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The starting gun goes off for another nuclear arms race
Despite being the single largest nuclear power in the world, the United States is building more missiles. Maybe it’s an echo of the saber-rattling going on in Iran or North Korea off the Oval Office door, but this is just disgusting. The goal is, according to this NYT article , to replace the arsenal of aging warheads with a generation meant to be sturdier, more reliable, safer from accidental detonation and more secure from theft. Nuclear weaponry has absolutely no place at all on the modern ‘battlefield’, if we can use such a term. Is the US actually considering using these weapons, and if not why would billions of tax dollars go to such a program? Does anyone remember what happened last time somebody used a nuclear weapon?
As if the US re-arming wasn’t enough to get the whole world back in the nuclear market, Col. Khadafi of Libya adds another disincentive. In a rare interview with the BBC, Khadafi complains that western countries never followed-through on their promises of development aid in exchange for his country’s nuclear disarming. For more on that story go here
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Iraq war continues unimpeded, soccer players at risk
The BBC recently ran an article on the Iraq war with a slightly different take than most. The piece, which can be found here , related two stories of youth soccer games interrupted by bomb attacks. In both cases there were fatalities. The whole situation reminds me of this anti-landmine advertisement put out by the UN. It was never aired in the US for obvious reasons, but the message is an important one.
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Iraq war predictions were a little off
The National Security Archives have just secured a pre-Iraq war slideshow by the US military given to civilian leaders detailing their projections on how Iraq would look 3, 12, 45 months after invasion. At this point in the conflict (we are just beginning the 47th month of the war) we are beyond their scope of prediction. The last prediction given in the slide show is 45 months at which point we should be completely disengaged with direct military action, with a possibility of 5,000 troops in the area just in case.
Surprise! Last month President Bush approved another troop increase of 20,000 troops which would bring the total number above 150,000.
Thanks to the National Security Archives for their work in securing the information. I’‘m just glad people still now what the Freedom of Information Act is. For more detail, check out the New York Times article that led me to this interesting revelation.
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Military tech goes domestic
Night-vision, laser-guided bombs and wrinkle-free cloth. In case you don’‘t spend much time hanging around Army bases, the Army has new duds. These uniforms are not only better for camouflage (they use a muted and pixelated pattern that is far harder to pick out in any situation) but they’‘re also wrinkle and stain-free. I remember watching an episode of "Mail Call" with R. Lee Ermey about the new uniforms a few years ago and I have to say, it is a lot harder to spot people in these. For the individual soldier there is an added blessing to making it harder to shoot him or her, they also can’‘t be pressed and the Timberland-style suede boots can’‘t be polished. This new Army, they don’‘t have to polish boots and Haliburton peels their potatoes. Next thing you know Blackwater will be doing their fighting. If you want to know more about the new uniforms, peruse this New York Times article. \r\n\r\nFor a fancy diagram of the uniform changes, look here.
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