We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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There is an interesting article in the Virginian-Pilot called Gun shop owner sues ATF over reports. The owner of a gun shop in Virginia is suing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms because it has demand records of the shop’s used gun sales. The owner says the government is compiling a database of gun owners, which is strictly illegal. I particularly liked:
“While no one has accused me of committing a crime, they’re going on a fishing expedition, and I’m not going fishing with them,” Marcus said in a recent interview from his shop.
Excellent. The state can only tie liberty in knots if enough people are willing cooperate with it. Don’t cooperate.
The deadliest criminals in America call themselves Drug Warriors.
– Dale Amon
Here are some insights sent in by Samizdata reader George Guttman. Agree or disagree, they are reasonable points to make:
So the father of American Taliban member John Walker says “he is just a 20 year old kid”.
Well so are the US Marines we have had to send to Afghanistan to protect ourselves from “kids” like that. Come on, take some responsibility.
Why is September 11th referred to as a “Tragedy?” Let’s call it what it was…A terroristic act of war…kinda puts an angle of reality on it.
Why is a US military tribunal “wrong” for foreign terrorists… when it is also what US military personnel face.
Over on Mind over what matters, fellow bloggista Jay Zilber makes a remark that caught my eye whilst I was surfing the mimetic waves looking for interesting tubes and eddies in the zeitgeist:
TOUGH CHOICE? I’ll make it easy for you. Aaron Sorkin without crack is like a day without sunshine — and besides, The West Wing is, and ever shall be, so September 10th.
Interesting. So September 10th. Yes, I know exactly what he means.
Reading the post below by our esteemed Samizdata Illuminatus, I have just realised what a ‘broad-based government’ means… a government with broads in it!
Throw away those burquas, ladies! It’s time to get your snouts in the pork barrels with all the guys!
Oops… maybe we need a different expression other than ‘pork barrels’ when describing government funding boondoggles in Muslim countries.
There is an interesting article by Matthew Edgar on Politics.com called The Solution to Post-Taliban Afghanistan: No Government. Whilst I do not actually agree with all its contentions, the central thrust of the article is insightful and realistic. It is a very different approach from the ‘received wisdom’ that various pundits and government talking head have been declaiming as the preferred ‘solution’ to Afghanistan’s woes (mumble, mumble, broad-based government, mumble, mumble, democracy…).
British sporting ‘hero’ Sir Geoff Hurst is too afraid of terrorism to fly on a British Airways aircraft. He joins the list of cricketer ‘heroes’ Robert Croft and Andrew Caddick and movie action ‘heroes’ Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwartzenegger in The Chickenshit Files.
My theory is that sports and media personalities such as these people are so astonishingly egocentric that they think any terrorist wishing to harm the USA or the UK must surely regard them as the very embodiment of that nation, hence they are a prime target. I hate to break this to you guys, but I do not think Osama bin Laden ever thought that US foreign policy was drafted by card carrying members of the Equity Actors Union, or he would have arranged for one of those hijacked aircraft to have been flown into Hollywood Boulevard.
In my first article on November 7 about these ‘heroes’ with feet of clay, I contrasted them quivering behind the walls of their mansions, with Ellen Degeneris, who stood up and taunted the Taliban live on television. Similarly, I would like to tip my kevlar battlebowler to Mariah Carey.
Now Mariah has been going through a rather bad patch in the last few months, with a nervous breakdown, erratic behaviour and visits to rehab gleefully reported in the press. Yet in spite of that and although she is a nervous flyer at the best of times, she flew to Kosovo yesterday and entertained US soldiers involved in the peacekeeping operation there.
So although Mariah Carey is not my usual taste in music, next time you see Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwartzenegger or sundry inconsequential sportsmen described as ‘heroes’, I invite you to blow a raspberry and go out and buy a Mariah Carey CD. She is got it where it counts… and I am not just referring to her more obvious charms. Good on you, girl.
Following the horrors in Israel, it is entirely reasonable and justified for the Israeli security services to do what the Palestinian Authority of Yassir Arafat has singularly failed to do, namely go after the psychopathic Hamas and Islamic Jihad organisations.
Israel is also quite right to demand that Arafat make a serious effort to suppress Hamas himself. This very point was made by an Israeli minister on the BBC this morning. In response however, the BBC reporter asked the minister
“If you want Arafat’s security services to do their job as you demand, then why are Israel’s attacks primarily directed at Arafat’s security services themselves?”
The reply can be best described as no reply, other than to insist that Arafat was responsible for arresting members of Hamas and he was not living up to his part of the bargain. The BBC reporter rephrased the question, asking:
“Why is Israel destroying the very force that you are demanding Arafat order to crush Hamas?”
The minister replied
“Israel is sending Chairman Arafat a message and if he does not understand that message, we will send it again.”
Well I sure as hell hear Israel’s message and it has very little to do with what that minister was saying. It is entirely reasonable for Israel to go after Hamas, given the Palestinian Authority’s abject failure to do so. But how does destroying Arafat’s assets achieve this? It would be rather like the USA striking the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan because they were not attacking the Taliban with enough gusto. Clearly that is absurd. If you want to understand what is going on, you have to ignore what the Israeli government is saying and just look at what they are doing.
The reality is that Palestinian Authority is a deeply corrupt, tyrannical, factionally riven organisation which could not control Hamas or Islamic Jihad even if it was inclined to. My analysis is that as well as going after the elusive Hamas, Israel is attacking the Palestinian Authority partially because internal Israeli outrage demands ‘action’ and requires someone been seen to pay big time (and the Palestinian Authority is a nice easy visible target) but mostly because Sharon sees this as his best chance to destroy the Palestinian Authority and reshuffle the deck whilst the world’s attention (meaning the USA) is focused on Afghanistan. Israeli colonisation of the occupied territories will continue (25 new settlements under the Sharon government) and the Palestinian west bank bantustans will not be allowed to expand into a proto-nation. Governments by their very nature are vast engines of deception: watch what they do and subject every utterance to skeptical but rational analysis. The target is Arafat’s ‘government’ with Hamas only being struck en passant. For reasons that are a mixture of Jewish colonial expansion and reasonable self-defense of Israel, Sharon wants to destroy the existing order in Palestine and replace it with something more to his liking. That is the reality.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
– Robert A. Heinlein
The Daily Telegraph is carrying interesting articles on the expanding role of the SAS in Afghanistan.
ALLIED commanders want the Special Air Service to provide one of the lead assault teams for the attack on Tora Bora, the mountain cave complex where Osama bin Laden is expected to make his final stand. Gen Tommy Franks, the operational commander of US forces involved in the Afghan campaign, made the decision after a series of spectacularly successful operations conducted by British special forces in the past fortnight.
I cannot help wondering if the Brits have not just won the booby prize. Hunting terrorists in a cave complex? That is certainly not my idea of jolly japes.
It is also reported that the Brits will be reinforced by their comrades in the Australian SAS and the New Zealand SAS. Given the somewhat different operational philosophies of the British/Commonwealth SAS and the US SpecOps groups, there is considerable scope for valuable synergies. The sheer range of experience, specialist skills, equipment and capabilities that these groups collectively represent is tremendous. As a result, the range of tactical options available must present Taliban/Al Qaeda with an appalling defensive dilemma on every level.
A lot of utter tosh has been written by the small but loud and malodorous nitwit faction within British BigMedia(tm) (such as the cretinous Daily Mail), who seem to be suggesting the SAS would win the war single handed. To that end “sources said” the Brits were making sure they did not end up having to work the inept US special forces and thus were operating in completely separate operational areas from the Yanks. Completely ludicrous of course. During the messy prison revolt in Mazar-i-Sharif, who should be filmed operating together, as in literally next to each other, M4 rifles in hand, by the excellent SkyNews team? British SAS and American Delta commandos naturally. And people wonder why I say the Daily Mail is best employed in cat litter trays.
There is also an article about the ‘new’ British L115A .338 calibre sniper rifle being used by the SAS in Afghanistan. They are quite correct that it is a superb weapon: the combination of rugged Arctic optimised construction, outstanding ballistics and sub-MOA accuracy makes it ideal for poaching Al Qaeda members… but with all due respect to the Daily Telegraph, the ‘new’ L115A is just a re-barreled L96A1. It has been on the civilian market in the fearsome .338 Lapua for several years.
It seems that Harry Potter is taking over like cocaine in the 1980’s. The Devil Girl confesses her addiction:
I am wrapped up in my Harry Potter […] I’ve been reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets all night and day. I am going to finish it so I can read books 3 and 4. This is worse than crack, I swear. (Not that I’d know, but, uhm, well anyway..)
Everyone was so concerned about a few cases of anthrax, they missed something truly virulent spreading across the world.
Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus
– J. K. Rowling (…whom the Samizdata Illuminatus happens to think is rather desirable)
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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