It seems to be a common denominator of religious extremists of all stripes that their cruelty is usually matched by their ignorance of what their religion is actually about.
Many years ago a friend of mine joked that the most discriminated person imaginable must be a gay, black Jew. Unfortunately, it wasn't really a joke but reality.
“We have done multiple studies of our operations in Afghanistan,” Thomas wrote in an email. “We have an obligation to ensure those lessons, both good and bad, are correctly learned for the future, and we take that charge very seriously".
I wouldn't be surprised if future historians will regard the privatized penitentiary system as a similar abject institutionalized injustice comparable to the institution of slavery. Especially since it largely affects the same minority and often inmates are required to perform prison work.
The intelligence and liveliness of this old man near the end of his life is inspiring and his words are prophetic.
As more and more Americans are stripped off their rights they will need to learn to take inspiration from the civil rights movement of old to get them back.
Chemical weapons in modern warfare are terror weapons. They "worked" in that regard when Saddam Hussein was using them. They are less designed to kill combatants but civilians that are believed to be associated with them i.e. Sunnis in this case.
Truly horrific to what lows Assad is willing to go, especially contemplating that he once practiced medicine.
Base load is a canard and can be addressed with large and flexible enough grids (a major handicap in the US when compared to Europe).
The more problematic challenge is peak demand and fluctuations. That is what will keep natural gas in business unless more storage technologies are available.
Pumped hydro is ideal in this regard but at least in Europe most geological suitable sites have already been developed (not sure about the US).
There are some bold visions for storage technologies but some of these ideas will require a Manhattan Project like effort. E.g. such as the Hydraulic Hydro Energy Storage idea.
Want to join the chorus of thanks for this report!
What a sad comment on the state of corporate media. One man with a camera and the ability to ask thoughtful questions puts all their reporting to shame.
recently I came across <a href=http://tinyurl.com/3jqzjfn this article in the Independent. It talks about how the historic structures of Mecca and Median are destroyed to make space for a 'Vegas' like cityscape.
If true this seems to be an atrocious destruction of Islam's cultural heritage. What astounded me is that the article claims that Wahhabism actually encourages this kind of vandalism. If true this would make the Saudi Royals abysmally lousy guardians of Islam's most sacred sites.
Russia only has been an unreliable supplier because the Ukraine did not pay the price they demanded.
They are quite reliable if you pay the market price on time. Hence Nord Stream.
Admittedly you don't want to be at the mercy of just one supplier but the dependency is mutual. After all Russia requires good customers to cash in on the riches of their natural resources.
Misplaced my earlier comment it is a reply that goes here.
GDP is a notoriously bad measure for how well off a country is (-> referenced link).
Nevertheless it'll be interesting how US and Germany's per capita GDP compare when also talking out the financial services (I'd argue they are highly bloated and dysfunctional in the US at this time).
I would hope that the integration of the European Union would have reached a level by 2050 that breaking out individual countries such as my own (Germany) doesn't really make sense.
Already I think the euro zone should be considered as one fully consolidated economy. After all within this zone we have essentially no borders, full economic mobility and freedom as well as the same currency.
No offense meant, but it feels to me that US observers often seem to be a ignorant of this development and the level of economic integration that has already been achieved.
With all due respect I find this is too cavalier an attitude. While I all for not fighting wars it nevertheless helps to mitigate some of the atrocities if certain humanitarian rules are followed. This was even true for WWII when Germany and the allies restrained from using chemical warfare and observed the Geneva convention for prisoners of war.
There is no doubt that the first ever mass air raid that destroyed Guernica during the Spanish civil war constituted a war crime. Unfortunately instead if codifying the use of air force against civilians as war crime the US and UK pushed back on it when the the fourth Geneva convention of 1949 was negotiated since they feared an admission of guilt for their systematic "area bombing" of German and Japanese civilians.
War has been a terrible constant throughout human history. There is little expectation that this is going to change. Any effort to dull its teeth through implementation of rules of conduct, field manuals, disarmament agreements and international treaties etc. are worthwhile exercises that deserve the fullest political support.
I understand that this is a blog and don't expect the rigorousness of an academic paper. Nevertheless for a historian of your standing this statement is just too glib and simplistic:
The only way not to commit atrocities and war crimes is not to fight wars.
Wars will be fought. If you accept that premise then we should be motivated to mitigate the damage as much as possible.
It seems to be a common denominator of religious extremists of all stripes that their cruelty is usually matched by their ignorance of what their religion is actually about.
Really don't think ISIS needs much help in the discrediting dept.
They already put their genocidal atrocities pridefully on Youtube.
The counterpunsh link nicely demonstrates that uninformed tin foil head speculations are not just a prerogative of the American right.
Profoundly creepy.
But then again not worse then this recent news from Madrid.
Many years ago a friend of mine joked that the most discriminated person imaginable must be a gay, black Jew. Unfortunately, it wasn't really a joke but reality.
“We have done multiple studies of our operations in Afghanistan,” Thomas wrote in an email. “We have an obligation to ensure those lessons, both good and bad, are correctly learned for the future, and we take that charge very seriously".
Well then, what could possibly go wrong.
Leave it to the pope to turn these gasbags into caricatures of themselves.
Soon the will start calling liberal Jews Antisemitic, and won't see an irony in it.
Dr. Cole, the media is abuzz with news that Merkel called Putin as out of touch with reality. The quote is "he lives in another world".
Problem is, if you translate this word by word into German: "Er lebt in einer anderen Welt" means something rather different.
If a German uses this phrase it means "he sees the world entirely different".
Very reminiscent of the mistranslated Ahmadinejad quote.
And jut like in the latter case this kind of bad translation can do some real damage.
Kant showed that this moral 'doctrine' can be solely motivated by reason, i.e. it makes for functioning societies.
If you want to go further than that you can explore how social mores and altruism convey evolutionary benefits to social animals.
The divine is indeed entirely unnecessary.
I wouldn't be surprised if future historians will regard the privatized penitentiary system as a similar abject institutionalized injustice comparable to the institution of slavery. Especially since it largely affects the same minority and often inmates are required to perform prison work.
Thank you Professor for this article. Written with all the passion of a true American patriot.
You are stating the obvious, that glaringly never gets said.
Sad how this boy echos my mother's sentiment who grew up as a child in WW2 Germany with the constant thread of air raids.
Half a century later and civilians are still killed out of the blue sky.
The first long distance drive was performed by a woman:
link to en.wikipedia.org
A woman race driver was the first to take a car around the world:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Very funny.
A travesty of justice.
Thank you, Prof. Cole, for connecting these threads and stories that are so often presented as disparate and disconnected.
This Canadian based company may be good starting point: link to hushmail.com
Yes, I wondered this too. While the linked article seems to be factual at first glance, the trumpet.com is a most bizarre "news" site.
The intelligence and liveliness of this old man near the end of his life is inspiring and his words are prophetic.
As more and more Americans are stripped off their rights they will need to learn to take inspiration from the civil rights movement of old to get them back.
Chemical weapons in modern warfare are terror weapons. They "worked" in that regard when Saddam Hussein was using them. They are less designed to kill combatants but civilians that are believed to be associated with them i.e. Sunnis in this case.
Truly horrific to what lows Assad is willing to go, especially contemplating that he once practiced medicine.
Megacephalus, your statement about "the shear arrogance of being self-proclaimed ‘God’s Chosen’" is abjectly odious.
Religions of any sort tend to claim to be the chosen ones. To specifically condem Judasim for this is indeed anti-Semitic.
It is company like yours that makes it easy for Likkudniks of any color to brush of human right based criticism as nothing but Antisemitism.
Base load is a canard and can be addressed with large and flexible enough grids (a major handicap in the US when compared to Europe).
The more problematic challenge is peak demand and fluctuations. That is what will keep natural gas in business unless more storage technologies are available.
Pumped hydro is ideal in this regard but at least in Europe most geological suitable sites have already been developed (not sure about the US).
There are some bold visions for storage technologies but some of these ideas will require a Manhattan Project like effort. E.g. such as the Hydraulic Hydro Energy Storage idea.
Want to join the chorus of thanks for this report!
What a sad comment on the state of corporate media. One man with a camera and the ability to ask thoughtful questions puts all their reporting to shame.
Prof. Cole,
recently I came across <a href=http://tinyurl.com/3jqzjfn this article in the Independent. It talks about how the historic structures of Mecca and Median are destroyed to make space for a 'Vegas' like cityscape.
If true this seems to be an atrocious destruction of Islam's cultural heritage. What astounded me is that the article claims that Wahhabism actually encourages this kind of vandalism. If true this would make the Saudi Royals abysmally lousy guardians of Islam's most sacred sites.
I'd be very interested to hear your take on this.
Russia only has been an unreliable supplier because the Ukraine did not pay the price they demanded.
They are quite reliable if you pay the market price on time. Hence Nord Stream.
Admittedly you don't want to be at the mercy of just one supplier but the dependency is mutual. After all Russia requires good customers to cash in on the riches of their natural resources.
Misplaced my earlier comment it is a reply that goes here.
GDP is a notoriously bad measure for how well off a country is (-> referenced link).
Nevertheless it'll be interesting how US and Germany's per capita GDP compare when also talking out the financial services (I'd argue they are highly bloated and dysfunctional in the US at this time).
GDP reference:
link to shell.ihug.co.nz
Impressive work. One minor quibble though:
I would hope that the integration of the European Union would have reached a level by 2050 that breaking out individual countries such as my own (Germany) doesn't really make sense.
Already I think the euro zone should be considered as one fully consolidated economy. After all within this zone we have essentially no borders, full economic mobility and freedom as well as the same currency.
No offense meant, but it feels to me that US observers often seem to be a ignorant of this development and the level of economic integration that has already been achieved.
With all due respect I find this is too cavalier an attitude. While I all for not fighting wars it nevertheless helps to mitigate some of the atrocities if certain humanitarian rules are followed. This was even true for WWII when Germany and the allies restrained from using chemical warfare and observed the Geneva convention for prisoners of war.
There is no doubt that the first ever mass air raid that destroyed Guernica during the Spanish civil war constituted a war crime. Unfortunately instead if codifying the use of air force against civilians as war crime the US and UK pushed back on it when the the fourth Geneva convention of 1949 was negotiated since they feared an admission of guilt for their systematic "area bombing" of German and Japanese civilians.
War has been a terrible constant throughout human history. There is little expectation that this is going to change. Any effort to dull its teeth through implementation of rules of conduct, field manuals, disarmament agreements and international treaties etc. are worthwhile exercises that deserve the fullest political support.
I understand that this is a blog and don't expect the rigorousness of an academic paper. Nevertheless for a historian of your standing this statement is just too glib and simplistic:
The only way not to commit atrocities and war crimes is not to fight wars.
Wars will be fought. If you accept that premise then we should be motivated to mitigate the damage as much as possible.