A recent story about the Gitmo guards being "abused" by the prisoners reminded me of what civilian prisons are like. The inmates collect semen, blood, feces and urine, make a cocktail, ferment it and hurl it at guards. Yes it is one of the more vile aspects of being a prison guard, and you do have to check for any diseases that could have been transmitted via bodily fluids.

I have criticized Bush's handling of Iraq, the economy in terms of government spending, and there are other issues where he and I differ, but I still prefer him to Kerry. Having said that, the interrogators have had more than enough time to extract a reasonable amount of information from said detainees. It is time to either release them, or make them disappear. Yes I said it, kill them and hide the evidence. Those are the only two choices if you can't charge people held for 4 years or mroe without a trial. Release em or cover it up. Frankly it would have been smarter for the administration just to have killed them on the battlefield. I don't know what intelligence was gained from some of them, and perhaps it was significant. Of course that information won't come out until I am nearly dead and my decendents are well on in their years.

There are many ways to fight a war, but by and large the leaders of Al Qaeda (that are left...) and other terrorist organizations think that the Unite States and its allies are weak. They think this because we are unable to take casualties, we value human life too much. So we must ask ourselves, is it bad to value human life over say a strategic objective, or even a tactical goal in war time. I would say that it depends on the objective. In some areas a force would want to do things quietly and efficiently and other times a force may want to achieve something via a more bloody conflict in order to impress upon the enemy the seriousness of the situation.

The last time the US got serious was during the battle of Falluja in Iraq. And even there, we told all of the civilians to evacuate. Most that could, did including a great deal of terrorists. However many of the terrorists stayed behind to fight the US forces. They all died, we took some casualties, but our soldiers fine training and leadership gave them a victory to be proud of...for what it was. Falluja was a failure of strategy not tactics. Yes many terrorists were killed, but the people were allowed to return. The city should have been flattened and cleared. They should have been put on notice, but we showed them mercy to a degree that is nearly unparalleled in human history. Now one might ask, 'But Justin...thats inhumane destroying their homes, their places of business and all they have built!' My reply is a simple "yes, it is horrible and a regrettably necessary action." The conversation with a friend would proceed nearly as follows...

"Justin this will only create more terrorists"
"No it won't, and here let me show you why...*puts up slides* Example 1: Nuclear Warfare upon Japan did not create more kamikaze planes or soldiers, Example 2: Firebombing Dresden did not create more Nazis or make the general population more sympathetic to their cause"
"But the culture is different Justin"
"True, but violence is something that they do by and large respect as a sign of power and authority"
"Thats a lie"
"No its not, just inconvenient for you"
"bah I can't discus this any moer with you, you just don't listen"
"You're right, I'm didn't listen and I didn't want to free the Iraqis in the first place. The entire country did not deserve our help, only the Kurds did because they were willing to rise up on their own. And what did they get for it? Poison gas from Saddam (who supposedly doesn't have those weapons and didn't ship them to Syria even though we have documentation stating that he did).
"So you are saying the Iraq war was wrong"
*sigh* "Yes"
"I hear a 'but' coming"
"Yep, but we are there now and it should have been handled differently as I have outlined above."
"but those could be seen as war crimes"
"They are only crimes if you lose, you know that"
"See thats the arrogance that the world hates about us!"
"Yes every nation that gets to be great is arrogant to one degree or another. You see arrogance can be mistaken for confidence, and sometimes both mix. Every nation will fall, yes even the United States, The United Kingdom, Iran, Iraq, everyone's time will come and the differences are when, by whom or what will it be brought about and how fast will it happen."
"That doesn't give us the right to do it!"
"Sure it does, a sovereign nation has every right to violate the sovereignty of any other nation weaker than it, or to manipulate events to favor itself. I know its machiavellian to say those things but power is what it is. Sovereignty is only maintained as long as one is strong enough to keep it, just as your rights are only available to you because brave men and women were willing to give up everything to keep those rights for themselves and their posterity. I hate to point it out, but George Washington et al. were traitors to the English Crown. Yet, they won and so they are patriots. Over time those wounds have healed and our once greatest enemies are our best allies bonded through a common heritage and language."
"You are off topic"
"Right...well no I just went off about sovereignty and gave you examples."
"But that was over two hundred years ago"
"Two Hundred and Thirty Years to be exact"
"Right"
"That doesn't invalidate my point"
"Its a new world out here though"
"Not that new if we are fighting a foe with a mentality from the seventh century"
"Thats not fair"
"Neither is life"
"Darnit"
"You still don't swear do you"
"nope"
"Okay well thanks for listening to me rant and giving me a sound board"
"You're welcome...so whats next?"
"The next post is on Native American Cacinos and how much fun it is to see old white people throw away their money"
"Oh thats good...balance"
"I was joking"
"Crap"

And so Iraq and now Lebanon are now cluster***** becuase politicians cannot make decisions due to media pressures and blah blah blah plus their own spinelessness and the fact that they are purchased by and large by minority groups.

If you think a politician is too corrupt to serve, quit moaning about it and do something...write to him/her, support his or her challenger, or if none exists, run yourself. Whatever you do, don't do nothing.

Bush straighten this stuff out!!

Kerry, get off Bolton's back he's doing a fine job considering all of the crooks he has to deal with.

*rant off*

Middle East: Israel vs Hezbollah (Hizbollah)

This most recent conflict began not with Lebannon actually but with Hamas capturing an Israeli soldier and demanding a prisoner exchange. Hezbollah decided to steal their thunder and not only capture TWO soldiers, but decided to start shooting Katyusha and other types of rockets at the civilian population of Israel.

Meanwhile Israel responded with air strikes on missile launch sites and a ground movement intended to flush out Hezbollah from certain villages along the border. Governments from across the world ignorantly criticized Israel for a "disproportionate" response. Now they didn't say inappropriate respanse so I assume they were congratualting Israel on the proper way to overwhelm the enemy. If they were implying that the response was inappropriate then I have a counter suggestion: Israel hasn't gone far enough.

It is only in the modern times that warfare has been fought in a mannner in which we deliberately try to minimize casualties of the enemy people, not just the military forces. Right or wrong this is a fact. Even in WWII the United States of America and by association its allies deliberately targeted civilians and infrastructure to achive victory. Our bomb sights were primitive compared to today's laser and GPS guided bombs, but they achieved a far different effect back in WWII than the precision munitions today. Bombs hitting civilian buildings such as power stations, bridges and other infrastructures not only hampered German and Japanese military efforts but struck FEAR in to the hearts and minds of those people, which in the end helps with the pacification of the population without a messy occupation. To prove this I will cite the fire bombing of Japan, which killed more people and did more damage than the nuclear weapons used later in the war.

Also on the 13th February 1945, 773 Avro Lancasters bombed Dresden. During the next two days the USAAF sent over 527 heavy bombers to follow up the RAF attack. Dresden was nearly totally destroyed. As a result of the firestorm it was afterwards impossible to count the number of victims. Recent research suggest that 35,000 were killed but some German sources have argued that it was over 100,000. The bombers used incendiary bombs an set this medieval city aflame.

The United States and Great Britain have never appologized for these morally objectionable acts. In my opinion they should not appologize as it would serve no purpose other than to undermine the "justness" of the war becuase doing these things made us as bad or worse in some cases than the Germans. However war is not a "moral" thing in and of itself, in fact in every case it is the most evil thing nations can inflict upon eachother. What exacerbates the whole problem is trying to fight a less deadly war. If a nation cannot promise death to its enemies on a large scale, there is nofear to resist and eventually drive that weaker nation out.

Power on a national scale is more than just military size, morethan what form of government exists; it is all of those things, plus the will of the people whihc adds up, and the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. To break a national spirit, one must completely shock the people, and use a measure of ruthlessness in order to make them think you really are serious about achieving your goals. Now that doesn't mean there should be wholesale slaughter of civilians, but a measure of fear should be struck into a population.

In Iraq we call it a liberation, but they were never "taken over" by some foreign army. As far as I am concerned only the Kurds in the north were deserving of any effort on our part to separate them from Saddam Hussein. Of course Turkey would have flipped its lid over that issue.

In the case of the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah/Lebannon (the southern part) the Israelis are showing too much restraint. If as it is projected that Hezbollah consists in some part up to 40% of the Labannese population, then Israel should hve no compunction about striking some fear in to that 40% (perhaps killing up to 30% of that 40% which would be 12% of the population, or roughly 420,000 people) in order to destroy Hezbollah.

A cease fire is stupid until the other side can no longer fire at you.

Be quick, be decisive, and be ruthless.

Private Space Industry

Ever since mankind/human-kind has stared perhaps even glared at the stars we have wanted to go there. Some thought heaven was above us in the skies, which is why we refer to them as "the heavens above" and there are obviously the hells below as well.

When JFK announced our intentions to get to the moon before the Russians we finally began to crawl to wards leaving our own planet, and yet despite taking our first steps we are still in the cradle nearly four decades since. Not too long ago a company called Scaled Composites won the Ansari X-Prize by developing ans successfully testing a lauch and return vehicle that had a turn around of 48 hours from launch to relaunch.

Richar Branston of Virgin Atlantic billionaire-ism fame has partnered with Scaled Composites to form Virgin Galatic for the beginning of space tourism in a very serious manner.

In other news Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com founder) has made a big step in his new company Blue Origins and announced the prototype design for their launch vehicle and they have begun prospecting a site for launching the vehicle.

The future is here...lets get on board.