I read yesterday (NYT Feb 4, 2014) that Mr. Karzai of Afghanistan has been having long term and secret peace talks with the Taliban. The Obama Administration is miffed. They were not included in Mr. Karzai's secret talks. As I recall this has been a long term goal of the Afghanistan president.--peace with the Taliban. He has begged Mr. Obama to join in to no avail. That apparently is not on Mr. Obama's agenda. He would rather keep a residue of troops in that mountainous and difficult nation until hell freezes over.
Mr. Obama is stuck with the outdated dangerous idea foisted upon him by his military advisers and business associates ---the dangerous concept of US world hegemony...i.e. control of land and resources by military means so as to exploit these resources or to prevent our competitors to exploit them. Afghanistan is valuable territory based on its central location, corridor for oil and gas, and its own valuable mineral wealth. Imperialism and its modern equivalent may have been valid during the Cold War, but for a nation like the US struggling with unemployment, a fragile economy, crumbling roads and infrastructure, inadequate educational system and massive debts...it's out of reach for us now and not in OUR best interest. Time to put those old ideas to bed and focus on what we can do to improve our situation here at home.
Thank you Mr. Karzai...don't sign that status of forces agreement . You are doing yourself, the Afghanis and the citizens of the USA a great favor. Perhaps we can finally close the bloody books on this unnecessary war, bring our boys home and cut down on our wasteful military adventures abroad and the vast expenses which provide no benefit for the vast majority.
And why not?
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Friday, January 31, 2014
IN DEFENSE OF GOVERNOR CHRISTIE
I am not turned off on Gov. Christie as a result of the scandal. His handling of the situation so far has made me more sanguine about his presidential aspirations.
Over the last few weeks the Governor has been the center of a media feeding frenzy regarding the George Washington Bridge traffic scandal. I had to turn off one TV network because it was so repetitious I just could not listen any longer. Bashing Christie was their only story, and listening to it over and over again just got so boring. (Furthermore it soon became apparent that the objective of this barrage was to sink the only viable Republican candidate so as to support the prospects of a Ms Clinton candidacy. To my thinking she would be a disaster.) What more could they say about him?
The hiatus from the talking heads on the TV gave me some time to think. I used that time to contrast the kind of Presidential leadership we presently have in Washington---timid, uncertain, tentative, and with little ability to use or manipulate the bully pulpit and levers of power the occupant of the Oval Office has at his or her disposal (if they have the guts to use them) in that chaotic, back stabbing, quagmire of political intrigue. Mr. Obama, an intelligent man-a nice man, a decent man but a man with no stomach for battle, any battle. His weakness was that he could never show passion or get angry. Perhaps he was too fearful of being cast as “an angry black man”. That was a weakness he brought to the job with him. He just never had a chance. His timidity gave the Republicans the opening to attack and they never let up. I suggest he has become the Arthur Ashe of the political world. I was a great admirer of Mr.Ashe---a great tennis player,--but one who angered me --when he let his opponents take an obvious close call along the line which they did not deserve. He was the first prominent black player and he often, gave up points he should have fought for.
What Mr. Christie’s “scandal” revealed to me was that he is just the kind of leader we might need in Washington, he is the kind of "bully" that City deserves. (But he has to have a better staff. The sort who won't get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.). OK, Trenton is not Washington, but from what we know now, it appears to be a microcosm of the big bad city on the Potomac...a great training ground for the next President. So rather than turning me off---the so called “scandal” left me more confident in Governor Christie’s Machiavellian abilities. He might just be the one able to “kick a bit of ass” and get things to happen.
Now what would those things he WANTS to happen BE? What is his real agenda (besides being reelcted)? That's what we would have to know before we sign on to his candidacy. But if he were to govern as he has in New Jersey, as a sort of middle of the road Republican, there are many --like me---that just might be convinced. Our vote is always a compromise. Here in the USA we have two parties that bicker and fight with each other but their agendas are very similar. Well excluding the far right idiotic fringe elements.
To my mind right now (admittedly I am still not fully informed about Mr. Christie) I can’t imagine a Mr. Christie in our current President's position. He has just begun his new term. He was reelected handily. But his opponents (unfairly and I’m sorry to say viciously ) used that weakness as a bludgeon to delegitimization and weaken him---and the nation as a whole. We all suffered with him. His administration is partly responsible for the government grid-lock we have now. But the Republicans must take the main part of the blame. So why elect a candidate that can not or will not fully grasp the reins of power? As a nation we might just need a Christie-like character in the White House to “kick butt” in Washington. No more nice guys. We must tame the beast that Washington has become. So our nation can function again.
Over the last few weeks the Governor has been the center of a media feeding frenzy regarding the George Washington Bridge traffic scandal. I had to turn off one TV network because it was so repetitious I just could not listen any longer. Bashing Christie was their only story, and listening to it over and over again just got so boring. (Furthermore it soon became apparent that the objective of this barrage was to sink the only viable Republican candidate so as to support the prospects of a Ms Clinton candidacy. To my thinking she would be a disaster.) What more could they say about him?
The hiatus from the talking heads on the TV gave me some time to think. I used that time to contrast the kind of Presidential leadership we presently have in Washington---timid, uncertain, tentative, and with little ability to use or manipulate the bully pulpit and levers of power the occupant of the Oval Office has at his or her disposal (if they have the guts to use them) in that chaotic, back stabbing, quagmire of political intrigue. Mr. Obama, an intelligent man-a nice man, a decent man but a man with no stomach for battle, any battle. His weakness was that he could never show passion or get angry. Perhaps he was too fearful of being cast as “an angry black man”. That was a weakness he brought to the job with him. He just never had a chance. His timidity gave the Republicans the opening to attack and they never let up. I suggest he has become the Arthur Ashe of the political world. I was a great admirer of Mr.Ashe---a great tennis player,--but one who angered me --when he let his opponents take an obvious close call along the line which they did not deserve. He was the first prominent black player and he often, gave up points he should have fought for.
What Mr. Christie’s “scandal” revealed to me was that he is just the kind of leader we might need in Washington, he is the kind of "bully" that City deserves. (But he has to have a better staff. The sort who won't get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.). OK, Trenton is not Washington, but from what we know now, it appears to be a microcosm of the big bad city on the Potomac...a great training ground for the next President. So rather than turning me off---the so called “scandal” left me more confident in Governor Christie’s Machiavellian abilities. He might just be the one able to “kick a bit of ass” and get things to happen.
Now what would those things he WANTS to happen BE? What is his real agenda (besides being reelcted)? That's what we would have to know before we sign on to his candidacy. But if he were to govern as he has in New Jersey, as a sort of middle of the road Republican, there are many --like me---that just might be convinced. Our vote is always a compromise. Here in the USA we have two parties that bicker and fight with each other but their agendas are very similar. Well excluding the far right idiotic fringe elements.
To my mind right now (admittedly I am still not fully informed about Mr. Christie) I can’t imagine a Mr. Christie in our current President's position. He has just begun his new term. He was reelected handily. But his opponents (unfairly and I’m sorry to say viciously ) used that weakness as a bludgeon to delegitimization and weaken him---and the nation as a whole. We all suffered with him. His administration is partly responsible for the government grid-lock we have now. But the Republicans must take the main part of the blame. So why elect a candidate that can not or will not fully grasp the reins of power? As a nation we might just need a Christie-like character in the White House to “kick butt” in Washington. No more nice guys. We must tame the beast that Washington has become. So our nation can function again.
Friday, November 8, 2013
FUKUSHIMA --A GLOBAL DISASTER --MAKES FEAR OF NUCLEAR JUSTIFIED
FUKUSHIMA--A GLOBAL DISASTER--MAKES FEAR OF NUCLEAR JUSTIFIED
Recently I have seen an upsurge of an attitude about nuclear ionizing radiation which I might call “the “don't worry it’s harmless” school of thought. Such ideas, to my chagrin, are often expressed by my family dentist and the local orthopedic surgeon. I excuse their opinions, knowing they are colored by the fact that they prefer to have their patients think that their use of X rays (and a good part of how they make their comfortable incomes) incurs no danger to their patients. Their statements are in general valid...though more powerful ionizing radiation used in other protocols of medicine (i.e. MRIs) have been thoroughly criticized. But the media and practitioners of public opinion-control who have deep-rooted stakes in the viability and continued profitability of nuclear power are those with whom I have a real problem. Recently, some have argued, like my dentist, that radiation exposure should not be so frightening. For one example of such opinion pieces which look at radiation exposure through rose-colored glasses...(and may help get stories and books published by trade organizations) you may read:“Fear vs. Radiation: The Mismatch” by David Ropeik, NYT Opinion.
The blossoming of pieces such as those by Mr. Ropeik, who claims to be a risk analyst, is perhaps the natural outgrowth of the disaster that nuclear power has proved itself to be in the last two years as we all gaze on the slowly deteriorating conditions at Fukushima crippled since 11 March 2011. The Level 7 nuclear “event” (7 is the highest) in Japan is the second nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in little more than a quarter century. It is Fukushima which makes liars our of the nuclear advocates who attempt to paint nuclear as American as apple pie and as safe! After Chernobyl, and now Fukushima, world opinion now seriously questions the safety of this “most dangerous way to boil water” and to look more critically at all those sooth sayers in the nuclear industry who had profits rather than safety on their minds. Particularly devastating for the “its safe” crowd has been the disaster at Fukushima, occurring in a nation which prides itself on meticulousness, care and caution. If the methodical Japanese can't keep a lid on nuclear, how can we expect the Russians, Americans, or even French to do it any better. But the fear is not simply the result of the number of radiation deaths (a number difficult to pin down since effects take a long time to show up), which are admittedly...so far...few. The real fear is and should be of the long term contamination of wide swaths of countryside, the possibility of widely dispersed diluted amounts of biologically active nuclides being concentrated by the marine food chain, the direct contamination of water, soils, and food, the displacement of entire communities, the loss of agricultural areas to long term (virtually permanent)nuclear contamination, and finally not to mention the monstrous and debilitating costs. Risk analyst such as Mr. Ropeik make that analyis. What we do know is that Fukushima will eventually take four decades to clean up and cost unknown billions. After Chernobyl and now Fukushima the wisdom of this form of electrical generation is now more likely to be questioned. More and more thoughtful and knowledgeable leaders now consider nuclear to be too dangerous, unpredictable, and ultimately ruinously expensive. Now Germany (!), the financial and industrial powerhouse of Europe has decided to bring and end to its reliance on nuclear. Events such as this must make the powerful nuclear industry and their investors and political supporters shake in their boots and direct them to mount their campaigns of disinformation...an attempted “clean up” of their own.
So let's take a bit of review regarding the history of the earlier disaster at Chernobyl, since the Fukusihma event is difficult to evaluate since its story is still unfolding and the unpalatable and frightening facts are still “leaking out” from TEPCO like the highly contaminated water carrying dangerous Cesium 137 which is slowly leaking into the formerly pristine Pacific Ocean.
On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl Plant at Pripyat in east Central Europe, in what is now the Ukraine,was the site of a massive nuclear accident which caused an explosion and fire that released a huge cloud of radioactive dust which dispersed and settled over a vast area of the Ukraine. Global winds carried nuclear dust west which settled over all of Europe, except for Spain and Portugal. (Even today some parts of northern Scotland still have readily detectable levels of radioactivity in their soils and in the foods produced on them. In Germany hunters can not eat the boars they kill in the forests because the meat of these beasts is too radioactive.)
The world first became aware of the Chernobyl accident two days after the explosion when workers in a Swedish nuclear power plant in Forsmark,(nearly 700 miles away from Chernobyl) were found to have radioactive dust on their clothes. Swedish nuclear regulatory investigators attempting to find the "leak" at Forsmark were finally led to conclude the nuclear materials were coming from a far off site--in the Ukraine.
In attempting to control the disaster at Chernobyl many workers heroically exposed themselves to fatal doses of radioactivity. In the end it took the efforts of some half a million workers and cost 18 billion Russian rubles (today $600 million dollars) to temporarily staunch the leak of radioactivity and stabilize the shattered Chernobyl plant. To accomplish this the plant was covered over with tons of concrete and then an outer concrete shield was built over the entire plant. But over the years, the outer shield has decayed and cracked and is now subject to collapse---and a possible repeat of the leaks and spread of nuclear contamination. As a consequence, the Ukraine is presently building on the site an even more massive (20,000 ton) arched concrete “sarcophagus” which is being built on rails next to the plant and will when completed (at a cost of some 1.5 billion Euros) be slid over the existing plant on rails to cover and protect the plant for some future date, when the process will no doubt have to be repeated to prevent further harmful leakage.
As a result of the 1986 accident a vast area of the highly productive agricultural lands of the Ukraine were so badly contaminated by radioactive dust that they had to be permanently evacuated and their farms, homes and businesses abandoned for (20,000 years) virtually forever. Russian and Ukraine officials cleared an area within a radius of about 19 miles from the plant as too contaminated with radioactive materials for human life. This zone covering nearly 1,100 square miles is known as the “zone of alienation" and is nearly the size of the US State of Rhode Island. After more than a quarter century it remains uninhabited. The untended farms, fields and meadows have have reverted to forests where wildlife such as wolves and moose now wander. Officials estimate that the land will not be safe for human habitation for 20,000 years!
Can we all afford to put at risk of permanent contamination an area the size of the State of Rhode Island around each of our many nuclear plants? Would the aftermath of a massive nuclear accident result in multiple zones “of alienation” for twenty millennia? Imagine the effects on our metropolitan areas (some of which like New York are virtually ringed with old nuclear plants similar to those at Fukushima). As humans we are supposed to be able to learn from our mistakes. Chernobyl was enough to have most of us realize nuclear power was a big mistake. One mistake was enough for some of us. But now after Fukushima, if we do not change our ways and turn to better, less expensive, systems less prone to accidents which become global disasters----in a word safer ways to generate electricity--such as solar panels, wind, renewables, geothermal, tidal, etcetera, etcetera, after this second global disaster Fukushima, if we do nothing we are just plain dumb!
Get the picture?
rjk
Recently I have seen an upsurge of an attitude about nuclear ionizing radiation which I might call “the “don't worry it’s harmless” school of thought. Such ideas, to my chagrin, are often expressed by my family dentist and the local orthopedic surgeon. I excuse their opinions, knowing they are colored by the fact that they prefer to have their patients think that their use of X rays (and a good part of how they make their comfortable incomes) incurs no danger to their patients. Their statements are in general valid...though more powerful ionizing radiation used in other protocols of medicine (i.e. MRIs) have been thoroughly criticized. But the media and practitioners of public opinion-control who have deep-rooted stakes in the viability and continued profitability of nuclear power are those with whom I have a real problem. Recently, some have argued, like my dentist, that radiation exposure should not be so frightening. For one example of such opinion pieces which look at radiation exposure through rose-colored glasses...(and may help get stories and books published by trade organizations) you may read:“Fear vs. Radiation: The Mismatch” by David Ropeik, NYT Opinion.
The blossoming of pieces such as those by Mr. Ropeik, who claims to be a risk analyst, is perhaps the natural outgrowth of the disaster that nuclear power has proved itself to be in the last two years as we all gaze on the slowly deteriorating conditions at Fukushima crippled since 11 March 2011. The Level 7 nuclear “event” (7 is the highest) in Japan is the second nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in little more than a quarter century. It is Fukushima which makes liars our of the nuclear advocates who attempt to paint nuclear as American as apple pie and as safe! After Chernobyl, and now Fukushima, world opinion now seriously questions the safety of this “most dangerous way to boil water” and to look more critically at all those sooth sayers in the nuclear industry who had profits rather than safety on their minds. Particularly devastating for the “its safe” crowd has been the disaster at Fukushima, occurring in a nation which prides itself on meticulousness, care and caution. If the methodical Japanese can't keep a lid on nuclear, how can we expect the Russians, Americans, or even French to do it any better. But the fear is not simply the result of the number of radiation deaths (a number difficult to pin down since effects take a long time to show up), which are admittedly...so far...few. The real fear is and should be of the long term contamination of wide swaths of countryside, the possibility of widely dispersed diluted amounts of biologically active nuclides being concentrated by the marine food chain, the direct contamination of water, soils, and food, the displacement of entire communities, the loss of agricultural areas to long term (virtually permanent)nuclear contamination, and finally not to mention the monstrous and debilitating costs. Risk analyst such as Mr. Ropeik make that analyis. What we do know is that Fukushima will eventually take four decades to clean up and cost unknown billions. After Chernobyl and now Fukushima the wisdom of this form of electrical generation is now more likely to be questioned. More and more thoughtful and knowledgeable leaders now consider nuclear to be too dangerous, unpredictable, and ultimately ruinously expensive. Now Germany (!), the financial and industrial powerhouse of Europe has decided to bring and end to its reliance on nuclear. Events such as this must make the powerful nuclear industry and their investors and political supporters shake in their boots and direct them to mount their campaigns of disinformation...an attempted “clean up” of their own.
So let's take a bit of review regarding the history of the earlier disaster at Chernobyl, since the Fukusihma event is difficult to evaluate since its story is still unfolding and the unpalatable and frightening facts are still “leaking out” from TEPCO like the highly contaminated water carrying dangerous Cesium 137 which is slowly leaking into the formerly pristine Pacific Ocean.
On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl Plant at Pripyat in east Central Europe, in what is now the Ukraine,was the site of a massive nuclear accident which caused an explosion and fire that released a huge cloud of radioactive dust which dispersed and settled over a vast area of the Ukraine. Global winds carried nuclear dust west which settled over all of Europe, except for Spain and Portugal. (Even today some parts of northern Scotland still have readily detectable levels of radioactivity in their soils and in the foods produced on them. In Germany hunters can not eat the boars they kill in the forests because the meat of these beasts is too radioactive.)
The world first became aware of the Chernobyl accident two days after the explosion when workers in a Swedish nuclear power plant in Forsmark,(nearly 700 miles away from Chernobyl) were found to have radioactive dust on their clothes. Swedish nuclear regulatory investigators attempting to find the "leak" at Forsmark were finally led to conclude the nuclear materials were coming from a far off site--in the Ukraine.
In attempting to control the disaster at Chernobyl many workers heroically exposed themselves to fatal doses of radioactivity. In the end it took the efforts of some half a million workers and cost 18 billion Russian rubles (today $600 million dollars) to temporarily staunch the leak of radioactivity and stabilize the shattered Chernobyl plant. To accomplish this the plant was covered over with tons of concrete and then an outer concrete shield was built over the entire plant. But over the years, the outer shield has decayed and cracked and is now subject to collapse---and a possible repeat of the leaks and spread of nuclear contamination. As a consequence, the Ukraine is presently building on the site an even more massive (20,000 ton) arched concrete “sarcophagus” which is being built on rails next to the plant and will when completed (at a cost of some 1.5 billion Euros) be slid over the existing plant on rails to cover and protect the plant for some future date, when the process will no doubt have to be repeated to prevent further harmful leakage.
As a result of the 1986 accident a vast area of the highly productive agricultural lands of the Ukraine were so badly contaminated by radioactive dust that they had to be permanently evacuated and their farms, homes and businesses abandoned for (20,000 years) virtually forever. Russian and Ukraine officials cleared an area within a radius of about 19 miles from the plant as too contaminated with radioactive materials for human life. This zone covering nearly 1,100 square miles is known as the “zone of alienation" and is nearly the size of the US State of Rhode Island. After more than a quarter century it remains uninhabited. The untended farms, fields and meadows have have reverted to forests where wildlife such as wolves and moose now wander. Officials estimate that the land will not be safe for human habitation for 20,000 years!
Can we all afford to put at risk of permanent contamination an area the size of the State of Rhode Island around each of our many nuclear plants? Would the aftermath of a massive nuclear accident result in multiple zones “of alienation” for twenty millennia? Imagine the effects on our metropolitan areas (some of which like New York are virtually ringed with old nuclear plants similar to those at Fukushima). As humans we are supposed to be able to learn from our mistakes. Chernobyl was enough to have most of us realize nuclear power was a big mistake. One mistake was enough for some of us. But now after Fukushima, if we do not change our ways and turn to better, less expensive, systems less prone to accidents which become global disasters----in a word safer ways to generate electricity--such as solar panels, wind, renewables, geothermal, tidal, etcetera, etcetera, after this second global disaster Fukushima, if we do nothing we are just plain dumb!
Get the picture?
rjk
Monday, October 28, 2013
TIME FOR GEN. KEITH ALEXANDER TO GO!
Recent revelations regarding the excesses of the NSA and its gratuitous spying on our own allies, such as tapping German chancellor Angela Merkel's personal cell phone, proves Snowden was right! (What could we have learned about global terrorists from that phone tap? ) The NSA under Gen. Alexander ( the man who began his career hoovering up war data in US-occupied Iraq, who carried those very same procedures and polices home to the USA , and one who it has been recently revealed spent tens of millions of tax dollars creating a goldfinger-like Star Wars fantasy "spy command center" at NSA headquarters in Washington) is obviously out of control. Let's bring that young man Snowden back from Russia and award him with a whistleblower's medal.
We are a great nation, which on one level leads the world because of our immense wealth, and military power. But on another, our world stature comes from our moral authority and the trust other nations have in our system of justice and the adherence of our leaders to legal standards. That trust is also derived from our our past behaviors in which we worked to foster a world in which all nations including the USA exists within a frame work of mutually acceptable laws. We are at our core a nation of laws...our own and those we have help foster internationally. Too often in recent decades, since 9-11 and the Bush-Cheney debacle, we have become the world's law breaker, engaging in illegal invasions, occupations, wars, torture, renditions, extrajudicial assassinations, and setting up off-shore gulags, like Guantanamo....in short a "do what we say and not what we do" nation---all to our own detriment and to the detriment of our businesses and to that of the world as a whole.
It's time for President Obama, who is down deep a decent, intelligent man and a leader who respects the law, to rise up and assert his authority. Firing General Alexander might be a good first bold step. That should be followed by retreating from the undeserved attempts at arresting and punishing Mr. Snowden, without whom all of this mess would still be festering under the national carpet.
We are a great nation, which on one level leads the world because of our immense wealth, and military power. But on another, our world stature comes from our moral authority and the trust other nations have in our system of justice and the adherence of our leaders to legal standards. That trust is also derived from our our past behaviors in which we worked to foster a world in which all nations including the USA exists within a frame work of mutually acceptable laws. We are at our core a nation of laws...our own and those we have help foster internationally. Too often in recent decades, since 9-11 and the Bush-Cheney debacle, we have become the world's law breaker, engaging in illegal invasions, occupations, wars, torture, renditions, extrajudicial assassinations, and setting up off-shore gulags, like Guantanamo....in short a "do what we say and not what we do" nation---all to our own detriment and to the detriment of our businesses and to that of the world as a whole.
It's time for President Obama, who is down deep a decent, intelligent man and a leader who respects the law, to rise up and assert his authority. Firing General Alexander might be a good first bold step. That should be followed by retreating from the undeserved attempts at arresting and punishing Mr. Snowden, without whom all of this mess would still be festering under the national carpet.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
CIA DOUBLE TAP DRONE STRIKES ARE WAR CRIMES
CIA "Double Tap" Drone Strikes Indicate President Obama Misleads American Public On His Drone Strategy.
In his May 23 2013 address at the Defense University on drone warfare the President assured the American public that his use of armed unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) was legal and that his government has taken scrupulous care to avoid civilians casualties. But past studies by Stamford and New York Universities and more recently a study by Amnesty International (See my previous blog) indicate he mislead the public. The tactics used by the CIA, and apparently supported by Mr. Obama, are designed not to simply kill insurgents "allied with Al Qaeda" as he claims, but to terrorize entire civilian populations which may harbor these extremists. That is a war crime and one reason why he can not come clean with the American public.
The earlier studies and more recent ones document that about one-third of all casualties are innocent civilians. That does not seem to square with the President's description of "precision, surgical strikes". So there is more here than meets the casual eye. What that "more" is has been touched upon by both the Stamford study and the recent Amnesty International report which document the prevalence of what are termed "double tap" strikes which intentionally target first responders and civilians. Such a tactic is a war crime....no question.
The use of "double tap" strikes suggest that the actual purpose and intent of the drone campaign is not simply "neutralizing" bad guys but to cow and terrorize the civilians who may tend to support the militant insurgency. Apparently that is OK with the President as long as it remains a secret....but if it comes out in the open ( as at present) he and all those who are complicit in this campaign are potentially subject to war crimes charges. In these attacks, a first strike by a drone hellfire missile is followed a few minutes later by a second ( or even a third missile) which kills near by residents, or relatives who had responded to help the wounded, or find elderly or children buried in the rubble. Often police, doctors and other first responders are killed in this manner. The "double tap" strike is of course a heinous war crime, designed not to surgically kill the bad guys..but to sow terror and are no different than the car or truck bomb used by the other side. (see: "Outrage at CIA's deadly double tap drone attacks", in "The Independent", by Jerome Taylor, 25 September, 2012)
The attempt to use terror by invading armies, and others to quell insurgency is as old as the hills. From Julius Caesar in Gaul , the Nazis in occupied France, to Lt Calley in Mai Lai, Vietnam, and now Obama in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, when fighting a native insurgency the military (and sometimes their civilian leaders) believe they are in a battle for "the minds and hearts" of the natives. To win that battle they seek to terrorize the locals and so deny the insurgents (Gauls, Free French partisans, Viet Cong, Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc. ) sustenance and safe harbor. Obama's drone strikes in Pakistan are DESIGNED to kill indiscriminately so as to elicit terror. It explains why the civilian deaths are so high...one third of the total. Drones are a form of terrorism as brutal and inhumane as the car bombs the other side uses. The President's claim that the strikes are "surgical" and designed to "neutralize" our enemies with limited civilian casualties is a perversion of the truth. The revelation about "double tap" drone strikes is a shattering revelation which exposes the drone warfare strategy as a terrorist attacks similar to those used by less sophisticated car and satchel bombers. The second series of bombs from the drone takes out women and children, and innocent bystanders who in any normal society rush to the aid of the stricken. That is what our CIA is doing on a regular basis in Pakistan---killing, maiming and terrorizing whole villages all civilians---grandmothers! parents! children! Think about it...and oppose this horror and perversion of American values-- or become one with with the jack booted perpetrators of Oradour-sur-Glane.
Get the picture?
rjk
In his May 23 2013 address at the Defense University on drone warfare the President assured the American public that his use of armed unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) was legal and that his government has taken scrupulous care to avoid civilians casualties. But past studies by Stamford and New York Universities and more recently a study by Amnesty International (See my previous blog) indicate he mislead the public. The tactics used by the CIA, and apparently supported by Mr. Obama, are designed not to simply kill insurgents "allied with Al Qaeda" as he claims, but to terrorize entire civilian populations which may harbor these extremists. That is a war crime and one reason why he can not come clean with the American public.
The earlier studies and more recent ones document that about one-third of all casualties are innocent civilians. That does not seem to square with the President's description of "precision, surgical strikes". So there is more here than meets the casual eye. What that "more" is has been touched upon by both the Stamford study and the recent Amnesty International report which document the prevalence of what are termed "double tap" strikes which intentionally target first responders and civilians. Such a tactic is a war crime....no question.
The use of "double tap" strikes suggest that the actual purpose and intent of the drone campaign is not simply "neutralizing" bad guys but to cow and terrorize the civilians who may tend to support the militant insurgency. Apparently that is OK with the President as long as it remains a secret....but if it comes out in the open ( as at present) he and all those who are complicit in this campaign are potentially subject to war crimes charges. In these attacks, a first strike by a drone hellfire missile is followed a few minutes later by a second ( or even a third missile) which kills near by residents, or relatives who had responded to help the wounded, or find elderly or children buried in the rubble. Often police, doctors and other first responders are killed in this manner. The "double tap" strike is of course a heinous war crime, designed not to surgically kill the bad guys..but to sow terror and are no different than the car or truck bomb used by the other side. (see: "Outrage at CIA's deadly double tap drone attacks", in "The Independent", by Jerome Taylor, 25 September, 2012)
The attempt to use terror by invading armies, and others to quell insurgency is as old as the hills. From Julius Caesar in Gaul , the Nazis in occupied France, to Lt Calley in Mai Lai, Vietnam, and now Obama in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere, when fighting a native insurgency the military (and sometimes their civilian leaders) believe they are in a battle for "the minds and hearts" of the natives. To win that battle they seek to terrorize the locals and so deny the insurgents (Gauls, Free French partisans, Viet Cong, Taliban, Al Qaeda, etc. ) sustenance and safe harbor. Obama's drone strikes in Pakistan are DESIGNED to kill indiscriminately so as to elicit terror. It explains why the civilian deaths are so high...one third of the total. Drones are a form of terrorism as brutal and inhumane as the car bombs the other side uses. The President's claim that the strikes are "surgical" and designed to "neutralize" our enemies with limited civilian casualties is a perversion of the truth. The revelation about "double tap" drone strikes is a shattering revelation which exposes the drone warfare strategy as a terrorist attacks similar to those used by less sophisticated car and satchel bombers. The second series of bombs from the drone takes out women and children, and innocent bystanders who in any normal society rush to the aid of the stricken. That is what our CIA is doing on a regular basis in Pakistan---killing, maiming and terrorizing whole villages all civilians---grandmothers! parents! children! Think about it...and oppose this horror and perversion of American values-- or become one with with the jack booted perpetrators of Oradour-sur-Glane.
Get the picture?
rjk
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
CIA TARGETS AFGHAN GRANDMOTHER AND 18 CIVILIAN LABORERS--INSISTS THEY ARE TERRORISTS
CIA drone kills Afghan grandmother and 18 civilian laborers in drone attacks--yet claims they target only terrorists and kill no civilians.
“In his May 23, 2013 speech on drone policy delivered at the National Defense University, in Washington the Presidentried to assure the American public about his drone warfare by stating that outside of Afghanistan, which is a legitimate theater of war, the US targets "only al Qaeda and its associated forces”. At that time he also claimed he is “bound by state sovereignty" and also must "act (only) against terrorists who pose an imminent threat to the American people”. Furthermore, he stated, before any strike there must be “near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured." The President's press secretary recently stated (October 22), flatly that “targeted lethal action (drone strikes) are necessary, are legal, and only kill terrorists.” Though he did not elaborate how he defined a terrorist.
Some ugly facts about OBAMA's drone warfare campaign the president does not know or did not acknowledge:
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism based in London states that the US, under President Obama’s direction, has carried out 376 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. The estimated death toll from media reports indicate more than 3,000 fatalities, of which approximately one-third, or approximately one-thousand (1000) were innocent civilians. Thus, under Obama, approximately one-in-three victims of drone attacks are non-combatants mostly the elderly, women, young boys and small children. How can the President be so wrong?
Several times before, (see my previous blogs) I have railed against the America’s use of drones and drone warfare. This secret method of killing our so called enemies is mostly carried out in those distant parts of the world where few reporters can go, where the terrain is daunting, natives are poor, and speak incomprehensible dialects, and where custom dictates that they bury their dead within a few hours of an attack, leaving no evidence. Since these drone attacks are covert acts over which our own government has drawn a heavy veil of secrecy, the attacks are well-hidden and ignored by Congress and to a large degree our citizenry. In those previous blogs I was often reporting simply on what I read in the press, knowing full well the difficulties of sorting out the facts from these remote places. I weighed accounts from US government representatives: “We didn't do it!, or "The deceased were all heavily armed militant males ready to kill American troops.” Only to find out later that these accounts were untenable based on the known circumstances,ages of the victims, or conditions of the attack. But I persisted in comparing US accounts with those from Reuters, NY Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, Al Jazzeera or other main-line sources which often presented a different view. Frequently, the accounts conflicted wildly. (Well they did in the beginning, but all too often new evidences emerged which undermined the account of the US government.) The shroud of secrecy of our government, the remote and impenetrable nature of the terrain and lack of reporting from the actual site made it difficult to pin down facts. But a recent piece by Katherine Houreld in Reuters (Islamabad, October 22, 2013) makes clear in some cases who the culprits are.
t Katharine Houreld's piece in Reuters is not based on hear-say or second-hand reporting, but on a formal investigative study by Amnesty International using creditable researchers who visited the actual attack sites. The investigators focused on two specific drone attacks in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's remote, native territories situated along the border with Afghanistan and one of the most frequently hit by drone-attacks in the world.
Amnesty International (AI) a London-based, non-profit, human rights organization founded in 1966, conducted more than sixty interviews of the Waziristan native population using teams of researchers, translators and others, working independently of each other. They recovered physical data, photographs and other facts-on-the ground to support their findings concerning the nature of the strikes, those killed, and the ages, sex and occupations of the victims, as well as the circumstances of the attack, such as the time of day and weather.
The teams focused on only two of many attacks which had taken place in that area. Ms. Houreld's piece states:
”London-based Amnesty said a drone strike in the village of Ghundi Kala in October 2012 killed Mamana Bibi, 68, the wife of a retired school principal, as she was gathering vegetables. Her five grandchildren were wounded, including Safdar, 3, who fell off a roof and broke bones in his chest and shoulders. It was unclear why Bibi was hit. The weather was clear, providing good visibility to drone operators, the report said. In the second incident, 18 men were killed in the village of Zowi Sidgi in July 2012. Residents described the dead as a woodcutter, vegetable seller and miners who had gathered in the shade at dusk to talk after a day's work. The youngest was 14. The first drone strike killed at least eight people in all, the report said. The second one killed more locals as they were trying to rescue the wounded. "Everyone in the hut was cut to pieces," Amnesty quoted one witness as saying. "We started to panic and each person was trying to run in a different direction." According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, drones often also target rescuers coming to help those injured in an initial strike." Their findings clearly indicate that the US government spokesmen, the President, and his spokesmen and others are not telling the truth. Perhaps now, as with the NSA revelations, the President and the nation will have to face the ugly truth concerning how we conduct our secret, inhumane, costly, counter productive and wildly expensive wars.
“In his May 23, 2013 speech on drone policy delivered at the National Defense University, in Washington the Presidentried to assure the American public about his drone warfare by stating that outside of Afghanistan, which is a legitimate theater of war, the US targets "only al Qaeda and its associated forces”. At that time he also claimed he is “bound by state sovereignty" and also must "act (only) against terrorists who pose an imminent threat to the American people”. Furthermore, he stated, before any strike there must be “near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured." The President's press secretary recently stated (October 22), flatly that “targeted lethal action (drone strikes) are necessary, are legal, and only kill terrorists.” Though he did not elaborate how he defined a terrorist.
Some ugly facts about OBAMA's drone warfare campaign the president does not know or did not acknowledge:
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism based in London states that the US, under President Obama’s direction, has carried out 376 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. The estimated death toll from media reports indicate more than 3,000 fatalities, of which approximately one-third, or approximately one-thousand (1000) were innocent civilians. Thus, under Obama, approximately one-in-three victims of drone attacks are non-combatants mostly the elderly, women, young boys and small children. How can the President be so wrong?
Several times before, (see my previous blogs) I have railed against the America’s use of drones and drone warfare. This secret method of killing our so called enemies is mostly carried out in those distant parts of the world where few reporters can go, where the terrain is daunting, natives are poor, and speak incomprehensible dialects, and where custom dictates that they bury their dead within a few hours of an attack, leaving no evidence. Since these drone attacks are covert acts over which our own government has drawn a heavy veil of secrecy, the attacks are well-hidden and ignored by Congress and to a large degree our citizenry. In those previous blogs I was often reporting simply on what I read in the press, knowing full well the difficulties of sorting out the facts from these remote places. I weighed accounts from US government representatives: “We didn't do it!, or "The deceased were all heavily armed militant males ready to kill American troops.” Only to find out later that these accounts were untenable based on the known circumstances,ages of the victims, or conditions of the attack. But I persisted in comparing US accounts with those from Reuters, NY Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, Al Jazzeera or other main-line sources which often presented a different view. Frequently, the accounts conflicted wildly. (Well they did in the beginning, but all too often new evidences emerged which undermined the account of the US government.) The shroud of secrecy of our government, the remote and impenetrable nature of the terrain and lack of reporting from the actual site made it difficult to pin down facts. But a recent piece by Katherine Houreld in Reuters (Islamabad, October 22, 2013) makes clear in some cases who the culprits are.
t Katharine Houreld's piece in Reuters is not based on hear-say or second-hand reporting, but on a formal investigative study by Amnesty International using creditable researchers who visited the actual attack sites. The investigators focused on two specific drone attacks in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's remote, native territories situated along the border with Afghanistan and one of the most frequently hit by drone-attacks in the world.
Amnesty International (AI) a London-based, non-profit, human rights organization founded in 1966, conducted more than sixty interviews of the Waziristan native population using teams of researchers, translators and others, working independently of each other. They recovered physical data, photographs and other facts-on-the ground to support their findings concerning the nature of the strikes, those killed, and the ages, sex and occupations of the victims, as well as the circumstances of the attack, such as the time of day and weather.
The teams focused on only two of many attacks which had taken place in that area. Ms. Houreld's piece states:
”London-based Amnesty said a drone strike in the village of Ghundi Kala in October 2012 killed Mamana Bibi, 68, the wife of a retired school principal, as she was gathering vegetables. Her five grandchildren were wounded, including Safdar, 3, who fell off a roof and broke bones in his chest and shoulders. It was unclear why Bibi was hit. The weather was clear, providing good visibility to drone operators, the report said. In the second incident, 18 men were killed in the village of Zowi Sidgi in July 2012. Residents described the dead as a woodcutter, vegetable seller and miners who had gathered in the shade at dusk to talk after a day's work. The youngest was 14. The first drone strike killed at least eight people in all, the report said. The second one killed more locals as they were trying to rescue the wounded. "Everyone in the hut was cut to pieces," Amnesty quoted one witness as saying. "We started to panic and each person was trying to run in a different direction." According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, drones often also target rescuers coming to help those injured in an initial strike." Their findings clearly indicate that the US government spokesmen, the President, and his spokesmen and others are not telling the truth. Perhaps now, as with the NSA revelations, the President and the nation will have to face the ugly truth concerning how we conduct our secret, inhumane, costly, counter productive and wildly expensive wars.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
ON CRAP COFFEE, VERMONT MANURE AND UNEQUAL WEALTH IN USA
The Wealthy Rather Spend Their Money On Crap Coffee Than Pay More In Taxes
"Above all things good policy is to be used so that the treasures and monies in a state be not gathered into a few hands... Money is like fertilizer, not good except it be spread about." Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
That good advice has been ignored for four decades by the USA, the modern, western nation with the highest level of wealth and income inequality. (Turkey, Mexico and Chile, the world leaders in this unsavory category have higher levels of wealth inequality than we do.) American "exceptionalism" is often explained as a result of our freedom, economic opportunity and equality. But today we discover that those commendable national values have been compromised in the last three or four decades by the concentration of wealth into the hands of a very few. The USA has one of the lowest rates of upward mobility, stagnant middle and working class incomes, and we suffer from a situation in which the top 20% of the the population control more than 85% of the nation's wealth and income. That level of wealth disparity is found only in South America (such as in Mexico and Chile) and other tin-pot dictatorships where the "Jefe" and his family and friends control all the wealth.
Back to the USA. Do the math. Our wealth distribution leaves the lower 80% of the population with only 15% of the nation's wealth and income. Like cow manure on a Vermont dairy farm where help is scarce, the smelly stuff is sometimes piled high in the cow enclosure. It remains concentrated where it was dropped and is not being spread onto the fields where it would green the grass, nurture the cows, and bring higher income to the farmer. In Vermont, such circumstances lead to rotting piles of manure, bad smells, flies, contaminated domestic water wells, and pollution seeping into local streams. In the economic realm, it leads inequality, weak demand, long recessions, and a slow decline of national vigor.
In the US economy, where enormous wealth is concentrated in the upper one tenth of one percent, "weak demand" is almost universally blamed as the major cause of our present long and deep recession (the 2007 Great Recession). When 85 % of the nation'a wealth and income is confined to the upper 20%, the vast majority of our citizens in the bottom 80% must struggle to make do with only 15% of the nation's wealth-income pie. They do not have enough money in hand to make purchases which would boost demand. That is bad for the general economy. To make matters worse, the affluent use their wealth to lobby the government for reductions in their taxes and restrictions on government spending, policies which inhibit the government’s ability help alleviate the plight of the struggling middle class by putting money in the hands of those who would spend it and increase demand. Given our political system, the wealthy are often successful in this goal, creating the vicious cycle of lower taxes on the upper level earners, increased wealth disparity, low demand, poor business profits, high unemployment, and shrinking incomes for the lower four fifths of the wealth distribution---resulting in even less demand.
Francis Bacon put his finger on the problem way back in 16th Century. The spending habits and cash-use patterns of the super affluent do not “fertilize” the broader economy. These people do not buy automobiles, washing machines, local dairy products or local homes. Their numbers are few and their ability to spread their wealth by spending is limited, but more importantly they spend their money in ways that do not nurture wealth and job generation for the vast majority of Americans. Their money remains in one place, like a pile of Vermont cow manure, and if it is not spread on the fields it begins to stink.
One example of the disfunction caused by concentration of wealth is the explosion of weird, bizarre and exotic foods, drinks and accoutrements sold in upscale stores and on the world markets for the super affluent. These lucky folks, often the "nouveau riche", are determined to possess and display exotica to establish and proclaim their wealth status. One of the more bizarre examples of this kind of spending is the world's most expensive coffee--Terra Nero coffee, which sells in London’s Harrods for about £6500 ($10,400) and is said to come packed in 24 karat gold-foil bags.
Terra Nero is a form of crap coffee. In Indonesia's coffee-growing regions, local coffee-berry pickers discovered perhaps a decade ago that the the wild Indonesian civet cat, or Asian Palm Civet, made night visits to the coffee plantations where the pickers labored. In the morning, the workers found the evidences of civit depredations in the form of ripe berries stripped from the coffee branches, and on the ground, the tell-tale scat (excrement) of the Palm Civit. The scats or civit stools were studded with the evidence of what the civit ate: the indigestible part of the coffee berry--coffee beans. (The Palm Civet is a relatively rare, small, omnivorous mammal, about the size of a house cat. They are widely distributed in Africa and throughout southeast Asia. In the wild, they inhabit the ecological niche of the raccoon or opossum of North America.)
Perhaps one of the coffee-berry pickers was desperate for some partly-dried coffee beans and collected the scats, separated out the berries and roasted them, then brewed a quick cup of coffee. He found the flavor of the brew "distinctive”. The cause of this flavor may result from the fact that the Palm Civet is known to have a powerful defense mechanism in the form of a perineal (anal) scent gland which exudes a smelly substance during defecation which may flavor the beans. Or perhaps the simple passage of the beans,through the digestive tract of this critter, where the beans come into intimate contact with other civit foods, such as over-ripe fruits, partially-chewed-up insects, and small mammal remains all typically found within the alimentary tract of a nocturnal omnivore. But for whatever reason, the coffee pickers just loved the crappy stuff, calling it "kopi luwak" and avidly collecting it to savor the “distinctive” aroma of the beans and the "wild" taste of the coffee brewed from them. As you might expect, collecting civet poo from under brambles and thick brush on a steep Indonesian hillside might be quite messy and difficult. Also Palm Civits are not that common and thus their cat poo is also quite rare. The old economic adage concerning demand versus supply makes Asian Palm Civet crap and the beans found within the stools very valuable. Since only some 500 kilograms (or about 1000 lbs) are collected each year from selected major coffee plantations, the cost of the beans may reach $400 dollars a kilogram or about $200 dollars per pound.
As with other exotica, like North American black bear gall-bladders, shark fins, rhino horns, and elephant tusks, once the product becomes established as a status symbol, a market will develop for it among the super wealthy. This jacks up the price and tends to draw in entrepreneurs who attempt to streamline production and increase output and profits. At the present time, it is virtually impossible to find “wild” kopi luwak on the market. Chinese and Indonesian businessmen have largely taken over production. They have eliminated the coffee bean pickers, and wasteful time-consuming searching on steep hillsides. Many kopi luwak crap coffee producers generate their beans by force-feeding caged Palm Civets, or other other unrelated critters, collecting the feces from below their confining cages and generating a agro-business version of kopi luwak crap coffee.
Each year the wealthy buy up the last gold-foil wrapped kilogram of crap coffee, however disgusting it sounds or weird it tastes. They much prefer to spend their money on crap coffee than on slightly higher taxes. They don't buy products that generate jobs in the real economy like those from the local corner store, or the local factory. But for the rest of us it is wise to remember Francis Bacon's warning that keeping the fertilizer in the cow corral is not good for our economy. It tends to produce useless, ecologically questionable stuff like “crap coffee” and to increase the wealth gap, and prolong our deep, dreary economic recessions.
Get the picture?
k rjk
"Above all things good policy is to be used so that the treasures and monies in a state be not gathered into a few hands... Money is like fertilizer, not good except it be spread about." Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
That good advice has been ignored for four decades by the USA, the modern, western nation with the highest level of wealth and income inequality. (Turkey, Mexico and Chile, the world leaders in this unsavory category have higher levels of wealth inequality than we do.) American "exceptionalism" is often explained as a result of our freedom, economic opportunity and equality. But today we discover that those commendable national values have been compromised in the last three or four decades by the concentration of wealth into the hands of a very few. The USA has one of the lowest rates of upward mobility, stagnant middle and working class incomes, and we suffer from a situation in which the top 20% of the the population control more than 85% of the nation's wealth and income. That level of wealth disparity is found only in South America (such as in Mexico and Chile) and other tin-pot dictatorships where the "Jefe" and his family and friends control all the wealth.
Back to the USA. Do the math. Our wealth distribution leaves the lower 80% of the population with only 15% of the nation's wealth and income. Like cow manure on a Vermont dairy farm where help is scarce, the smelly stuff is sometimes piled high in the cow enclosure. It remains concentrated where it was dropped and is not being spread onto the fields where it would green the grass, nurture the cows, and bring higher income to the farmer. In Vermont, such circumstances lead to rotting piles of manure, bad smells, flies, contaminated domestic water wells, and pollution seeping into local streams. In the economic realm, it leads inequality, weak demand, long recessions, and a slow decline of national vigor.
In the US economy, where enormous wealth is concentrated in the upper one tenth of one percent, "weak demand" is almost universally blamed as the major cause of our present long and deep recession (the 2007 Great Recession). When 85 % of the nation'a wealth and income is confined to the upper 20%, the vast majority of our citizens in the bottom 80% must struggle to make do with only 15% of the nation's wealth-income pie. They do not have enough money in hand to make purchases which would boost demand. That is bad for the general economy. To make matters worse, the affluent use their wealth to lobby the government for reductions in their taxes and restrictions on government spending, policies which inhibit the government’s ability help alleviate the plight of the struggling middle class by putting money in the hands of those who would spend it and increase demand. Given our political system, the wealthy are often successful in this goal, creating the vicious cycle of lower taxes on the upper level earners, increased wealth disparity, low demand, poor business profits, high unemployment, and shrinking incomes for the lower four fifths of the wealth distribution---resulting in even less demand.
Francis Bacon put his finger on the problem way back in 16th Century. The spending habits and cash-use patterns of the super affluent do not “fertilize” the broader economy. These people do not buy automobiles, washing machines, local dairy products or local homes. Their numbers are few and their ability to spread their wealth by spending is limited, but more importantly they spend their money in ways that do not nurture wealth and job generation for the vast majority of Americans. Their money remains in one place, like a pile of Vermont cow manure, and if it is not spread on the fields it begins to stink.
One example of the disfunction caused by concentration of wealth is the explosion of weird, bizarre and exotic foods, drinks and accoutrements sold in upscale stores and on the world markets for the super affluent. These lucky folks, often the "nouveau riche", are determined to possess and display exotica to establish and proclaim their wealth status. One of the more bizarre examples of this kind of spending is the world's most expensive coffee--Terra Nero coffee, which sells in London’s Harrods for about £6500 ($10,400) and is said to come packed in 24 karat gold-foil bags.
Terra Nero is a form of crap coffee. In Indonesia's coffee-growing regions, local coffee-berry pickers discovered perhaps a decade ago that the the wild Indonesian civet cat, or Asian Palm Civet, made night visits to the coffee plantations where the pickers labored. In the morning, the workers found the evidences of civit depredations in the form of ripe berries stripped from the coffee branches, and on the ground, the tell-tale scat (excrement) of the Palm Civit. The scats or civit stools were studded with the evidence of what the civit ate: the indigestible part of the coffee berry--coffee beans. (The Palm Civet is a relatively rare, small, omnivorous mammal, about the size of a house cat. They are widely distributed in Africa and throughout southeast Asia. In the wild, they inhabit the ecological niche of the raccoon or opossum of North America.)
Perhaps one of the coffee-berry pickers was desperate for some partly-dried coffee beans and collected the scats, separated out the berries and roasted them, then brewed a quick cup of coffee. He found the flavor of the brew "distinctive”. The cause of this flavor may result from the fact that the Palm Civet is known to have a powerful defense mechanism in the form of a perineal (anal) scent gland which exudes a smelly substance during defecation which may flavor the beans. Or perhaps the simple passage of the beans,through the digestive tract of this critter, where the beans come into intimate contact with other civit foods, such as over-ripe fruits, partially-chewed-up insects, and small mammal remains all typically found within the alimentary tract of a nocturnal omnivore. But for whatever reason, the coffee pickers just loved the crappy stuff, calling it "kopi luwak" and avidly collecting it to savor the “distinctive” aroma of the beans and the "wild" taste of the coffee brewed from them. As you might expect, collecting civet poo from under brambles and thick brush on a steep Indonesian hillside might be quite messy and difficult. Also Palm Civits are not that common and thus their cat poo is also quite rare. The old economic adage concerning demand versus supply makes Asian Palm Civet crap and the beans found within the stools very valuable. Since only some 500 kilograms (or about 1000 lbs) are collected each year from selected major coffee plantations, the cost of the beans may reach $400 dollars a kilogram or about $200 dollars per pound.
As with other exotica, like North American black bear gall-bladders, shark fins, rhino horns, and elephant tusks, once the product becomes established as a status symbol, a market will develop for it among the super wealthy. This jacks up the price and tends to draw in entrepreneurs who attempt to streamline production and increase output and profits. At the present time, it is virtually impossible to find “wild” kopi luwak on the market. Chinese and Indonesian businessmen have largely taken over production. They have eliminated the coffee bean pickers, and wasteful time-consuming searching on steep hillsides. Many kopi luwak crap coffee producers generate their beans by force-feeding caged Palm Civets, or other other unrelated critters, collecting the feces from below their confining cages and generating a agro-business version of kopi luwak crap coffee.
Each year the wealthy buy up the last gold-foil wrapped kilogram of crap coffee, however disgusting it sounds or weird it tastes. They much prefer to spend their money on crap coffee than on slightly higher taxes. They don't buy products that generate jobs in the real economy like those from the local corner store, or the local factory. But for the rest of us it is wise to remember Francis Bacon's warning that keeping the fertilizer in the cow corral is not good for our economy. It tends to produce useless, ecologically questionable stuff like “crap coffee” and to increase the wealth gap, and prolong our deep, dreary economic recessions.
Get the picture?
k rjk
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