Playing for Peace

This is a cooperative musical movement for peace, worldwide, well worth watching, and listening to.

Predator - Hunter - Killer But-Not-Very-Fu**ing-Accurate Dragonfly

Can you imagine how you might feel, when this 21st century robot dragonfly is hovering over your town or village, and may be about to unleash Hellfire Missiles?

Of the 44 Predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians.

This is not only immoral, but involves incompetence and carelessness at a gross level.

According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 Predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities.

The success percentage for the drone hits during 2009 was hardly 11 per cent. On average, 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day. Most of the attacks were carried out on the basis of human intelligence, reportedly provided by the Pakistani and Afghan tribesmen, who are spying for the US-led allied forces in Afghanistan. (ie people who are waiting their rewards for being snouts).

The drones themselves are based close to their targets (such as at Bandari Air Base, Pakistan), but are controlled by video games players elsewhere

These wallies are sitting comfortably in their 70s style office chairs, looking at a scene maybe 5000 miles away, and using their judgement alone to apply instant death.

Downhill Decade

The Noughties (zero = nought in English English) were fairly traumatic, but especially for America, which is showing definite signs of its final decline as a global empire.

I have essentially ignored my own country, Britain, which behaved, under the governorship of America, exactly like a colony, throughout 10 years. So this is biassed towards America.

Here are 12 events that, I think, defined the decade:

1. Millenium Terror. Known plots to attack Los Angeles International Airport, the Amman Radisson Hotel in Jordan, several religious sites in Israel and the USS The Sullivan Brothers at dock in Yemen; all prevented during the last year of Bill Clinton's presidency

2. Bush election 2000. 'Won' against an opponent who gained a 420,000 majority of popular votes, by shenanigans in Florida, and his father's Supreme Court's final decision.

3. "9/11" I watched this event for 24 hours after seeing views of the first burning tower, and the poor BBC girl who didn't even notice as the second plane.slammed into the South Tower. It was shocking, and it was to define the decade. At the same time GW Bush was sitting, dumbly, in a Florida school, and, later in the day, criss-crossing the country in fear. (Although the Secret Service did absolutely nothing to protect him in the first few moments after the initial news - I wonder why?). In the very first hours, the media were blaming 'Al Qaida' and Osama bin Laden for it, and Dick Cheney was planning attacks on Iraq.

4. Invasion Afghanistan 2001- Bush immediately adopted the cowboy attitude: "Anyone who is not with us is against us". He even suggested he might be a "Crusader". America, and a handful of 'Coalition Allies' invaded, and with the help of massive bombing, and the Uzbek/Tajik 'Northern Alliance' of Afghan warlords, ousted the Taliban government within weeks. America is still fighting this war 8 years later, and losing.

5. Patriot Act 2001- Surprisingly, this draconian Act, with its over-riding widespread restrictions on many American civil rights laws, was already fully prepared for voting and signing, within 6 weeks of the attack, and voted into law, overnight, by traumatised representatives. There was no prolonged discussion in Congress or the Senate.

5. Iraq 2003 - The Bush Bunch set its eyes on Iraq from the beginning, America having already imposed, for a decade, stringent sanctions that killed half a million Iraqi children. The decison was made a year before the initial attack, and a major campaign of lies and half truths mounted to justify it. It was to be a 'cakewalk' with 'Iraqis greeting American liberators with bunches of flowers'. It wasn't. The first weeks between the staged overthrow of the evil dictator's statue and 'Mission Accomplished' announced by flyboy Bush, went OK, but then it went seriously wrong when L. Paul Bremer, a highly over-educated bureaucrat, was put in charge, and de-'Baathised' Iraq, dissolving the Army and sacking most competent government officials.

This led to rapid deteroration, and we have all seen the story of what happened since.The Americans are still there, six years later (but promise, honestly, to leave fairly soon)

6. Abu Ghraib 2004 - The actual photos of American torture at Saddam's former hell-hole prison were a shock to the gullible world, who may have still still believed that Americans could do no wrong. That was only the tip of the iceberg. Much worse things were going on.

7. Election 2004 - With unverifiable and hackable electronic voting machines brought in to replace 'hanging chads' it was a foregone conclusion that George W Bush would win. He did.

8. Katrina 2005 - the major American city of New Orleans was hit by a bit-more-than-regular typhoon, but its levee defences had been neglected for years, and it was inundated. GWB did precisely nothing, except congratulate his man,Michael D. Brown, head of FEMA, for a "Heck of a job"

"In February 2006, documented deaths were tallied at 1,300, with another 2,300 reported missing." These victims of negligence out-numbered the 9/11 dead, by 20%.

The people displaced by the floods were generally neglected, and still are. But then, they are only niggers.

9. Bubble Bursts 2008 - In 2008, the financial shit finally hit the fan; events which anyone with a brain might have foreseen, in view of the obvious bubbles created, and ignored, during the Nineties and the Noughties. Banks collapsed overnight. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers went first, followed closely by Washington Mutual. Merrill Lynch (the famous 'Thundering Herd') was forcibly sold to Bank of America. TARP was quickly organised, in cahoots with the banksters, at gunpoint, and handed over oodles of money ($700 billion dollars) to the remaining banks, to persuade them to ease credit restrictions on real businesses.
Of course, they didn't do this; they kept the money for their gambling pots and splurged out again on new financial 'products', to the benefit of no-one but themselves. The year 2009 brought them rich pickings.

10. First American Black President 2008 - The election of Barack Obama caused instant euphoria, but gradually, over the following year, we've seen him retaining the personnel (Bernanke, Gates, Geithner) and the policies (torture, rendition, domestic spying, bankster bailouts, etc) as used by the Bush Bunch.

11. Hannukah Massacre 2008-9. With exquisite timing, the Israelis launched a devastating and criminal attack on its prisoner population of 1.5 million in Gaza. It was timed almost exactly between Christmas and the inauguration of the new, hopeful, US president. Obama said nothing relevant during the attack, and has since worked against the Goldstone Report on Israel war crimes and crimes against humanity.

12. Decline of America 2009. I'm not absolutely sure that 2009 was a tipping-point in America's precipitous decline as a world empire, but there are certainly suggestions:
- Treasury Secretary Geithner goes to China, cap in hand, to plead that they won't drop buying US bonds.
- China buys a pipeline from Central Asia completely by-passing US war zones.. They didn't go to war. Oil supplies (and the war in Afghanistan) are major objectives of the Bush/Obama strategies.so this was a set-back.
- China buys a copper mine in Afghanistan, without fighting for it.

-

McChrystal

This is General Stan McChrystal, the Man of the Moment, so sparse and Spartan, so scornful of eating, drinking and sleeping that he looks like an Egyptian mummy.

He's in charge of the totally useless and unwinnable Aghan War.

He gamed Obama royally on the Afghan War, by disloyally leaking his deliberately grim report on the situation to Bob Woodward, of WaPo.

McChrystal is an ex-terrorist (he ran Dick Cheney's private assassination and torture squad in Iraq), so he's ideal to run this operation, which will kill thousands, if not millions, of innocents, who have already just about survived 30 years of war.

When you have men of this ilk in the military, thinking of nothing more than personal glory, then your Empire aspirations are in deep shit.

Anniversary - Gaza Hanukkah Massacre

Today is my birthday, and also the first anniversary of the beginning of the Hanukkah Massacre that started a year ago, with the deliberate targetting of a civil police graduation ceremony, where more than 40 aspiring civil policemen were killed, outright.

You have probably heard of many of the horrors perpetrated in that campaign by the Israelis, but maybe you haven't heard of the efforts they made to keep it all quiet:

"On Tuesday [30 Dec 08] , the Free Gaza Movement reported that its vessel, the Dignity, which it was using to transport medical supplies by sea to the besieged territory, was rammed and turned back by Israeli naval ships. The Dignity sustained heavy damage, the group reported, although no one was hurt. "When attacked, the Dignity was clearly in international waters, 90 miles off the coast of Gaza," a press release stated, describing Israel's actions as "wilful and criminal."

Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, "The fact that the ship was carrying journalists, including a CNN crew that has already broadcasted live three times, proves that this was a provocation on the part of the media."

The administration's nervousness at the presence of journalists is conditioned by the scale of the devastation it has already wreaked, and the even worse atrocities it is preparing

Brownouts

In the Philippines, they call power cuts 'brownouts', which seems strange, because it's definitely a 'blackout'. The lights are on, or they are off.

Last week, we had four 'brownouts' in four days.

The first came early on Monday, and was due to a collapsing cable in Bucas Grande, the island between Siargao and the 'mainland' of Mindanao. There is a 26km stretch which has to be inspected every time something, not diagnosed beforehand, happens like this.

Anything can cut the line; broken or wet insulators, landslides or tree collapses

There is a small town (Socorro) at one end, and nothing much at the other. It's a long trek, and the guys from SIARELCO didn't get the power going until 3am the next morning.

They have a very difficult job to try and maintain an electrical distribution system that has no real money to invest in new equipment.

Then, next morning, there was another 'brownout' for most of the morning, but I was so enraged that I didn't call my contact at SIARELCO to find out what was happening. So I don't know what caused this.

Then, later that day, the National Power Corporation decided to cut the power between 5 and 8pm because of overall short capacity, without notice.

On Thursday, there was another blackout, due to a cable problem between my town and the feeder town, Dapa. This was fixed within an hour thanks to the hard-working guys from SIARELCO.

SIARELCO is a feeder cooperative, taking electrical supplies from the mainland, and sending them around the island, but they don't appear to be investing much in repairing or renewing the feeder network.

As they have cut off my electricity supply (with a pair of pliers) just a few days after I received my bill, but was absent at the time I think they should do better than this.

I suspect (but I have no evidence or proof) that the Standard Operating Practice is obtaining, and someone in SIARELCO is siphoning off funds.

Ube cake photo

Purple Yams

These yams (Dioscorea alata) are known locally as ube. Their flesh is bright purple, and they are delicious.

Eaten like this, roasted (actually whacked into a microwave oven for 3-4 minutes) and slathered with butter, salt, and pepper, they easily beat a roast potato.

I haven't quite worked out yams; they are very similar to Camote or Colibri (Ipomaea batatas) sweet potatoes, and I sometimes suspect that Lindo, who sells them in town from his tiny shop, mixes them up. Some varieties may not be purple at all.

Ube has very thick skin, so I eat it like an avocado, scooping out the purple flesh. It's a very coarse flesh, and very chewy, but I like it that way.

It also makes a wonderful and colourful flavouring for ice cream and cakes. It's one of the most popular flavours here, and goes well with orange mango ice cream when it's slapped into a cone by the local vendor.

Sceptical?

These sceptical Afghans are being addressed by US Special Forces, dressed like Martians, accompanied by Afghan interpreters, dressed like tourists. Together, they make a comedy turn for the villagers they meet.

Petraeus and McChrystal expect to win hearts and minds in this war?

There is NO WAY to WIN this war, even if the Americans knew who they are trying to fight

How to Make Large Profits from American Wars

OK, so President Obama intends to send another 30,000 troops to get bogged down in Afghanistan; and some of his '43 NATO allies' will also augment their meagre contributions.

But what he didn't say was that the unsupervised personnel contributions from contractors and other mercenaries, paid from US funds, has already risen hugely. It's cash dumped into a trough into which many snouts have already greedily snuffled.

Jeremy Scahill, scourge of American military contractors, has these facts to report:

- America now has 189,000 paid personnel on the ground in Afghanistan. (68,000 US troops and 121,000 contractors). -That's a bit more than 7 times the estimated 25,000 fighting strength of the Taliban)

- From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan. During the same period, the number of armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan doubled, increasing from approximately 5,000 to more than 10,000.

- And less oversight: “The increase in Afghanistan contracts has not seen a corresponding increase in contract management and oversight,” according to McCaskill’s briefing paper. “In May 2009, DCMA [Defense Contract Management Agency] Director Charlie Williams told the Commission on Wartime Contracting that as many as 362 positions for Contracting Officer’s Representatives (CORs) in Afghanistan were currently vacant.”

- According to one USAID official, the agency is “sending too much money, too fast with too few people looking over how it is spent.” As a result, the agency does not “know … where the money is going.”

- As for waste and abuse, the subcommittee says that the Defense Contract Audit Agency identified more than $950 million in questioned and unsupported costs submitted by Defense Department contracts for work in Afghanistan. That’s 16% of the total contract dollars reviewed.

So, millions upon millions of dollars are leaking out of the hole at the bottom of the trough.

Hey, you there, now unemployed in NYC, LA, Florida, or Michigan, or in Britain; contact the employers of the moment:
Dyncorp
KBR
USAID

I can't find much about other less well-known companies, but I found this set of advising rules.

If you take the job, you'll find yourself in a country where most of the population hates you, or what your represent, and you may be blown apart by a roadside bomb at any time.

Maradjaw na Pasko

Maradjaw na Pasko!

That's Happy Christmas in Surigaonon, the local language.

The silly buggers get Christmas and Easter mixed up, but then they are Catholics. (or very seriously under-converted heathens - the local swear words, such as they are, all refer to pre-Christian gods, except one - Sus Mari Yusip, (Jesus, Mary, Joseph) which is not really a swear word at all, but a mild expression of surprise).

Off to Meet Family in Spain

In February, I will be going to Majorca in Spain to help my mother celebrate her 90th birthday. It will be a great opportunity to meet my two sisters, whom I haven't seen in years, together with my son, and his two children whom I haven't seen at all.

From 2001 until 2006, I visited Majorca for 6 months of every year, setting up my stall in various local markets to sell bead necklaces that my team of ladies made in my backroom here every 'winter'.

You can see the sort of stuff I was selling, to the right, in the Sunday market in Pollensa, a very old and charming town. I think its name might be translated from the original Latin as 'Chickenville'.

I bought the materials in Cebu, in a small street entirely taken up with small shops selling beads and other artefacts. I always enjoyed the experience. It was the only place where I've ever appreciated a karaoke bar, because genuine friends were singing (as was I) and I always spent too much.

Business went well until 2006, when the bottom suddenly dropped out of the market, and nobody, but nobody, especially men, wanted 'ethnic beads' any more.It was a sudden sweep, unannounced, that saw a 40% drop in 'ethnic' bead sales, coupled with increasing competition for junk jewellery from China.

Well, the fashion biz is fickle. In 2004, wide jeans belts were very popular. Everybody had them for sale, except me. So I designed and my ladies made a lot for the next year. I sold precisely 6 of the 300 I made.

But my trip to Spain won't be a doddle. I will be staying there for two weeks; but the visit will take nearly a whole month, including travel time. My itinerary is as follows:

Saturday morning - 4 Hour ferry trip to Surigao City. I will set off  early in case there is bad weather, or some other insurmountable obstacle, and because there is no ferry to Cebu on Mondays.
Sunday night - Ferry to Cebu
Tuesday night - Flight via Hong Kong and Doha to Gatwick, England.
Wednesday afternoon - flight from Gatwick to Palma, Majorca

The best part of the trip will be the layovers at Hong Kong, Doha, and Gatwick, each of which is exotic, expensive, and redolent of romantic travel. I have spent enough time in each to love them all.