RANT: The Great South African EsCON

It's taken me this long to get over my EXTREME ANGER over a dirty little deal South Africa recently signed up...

Yet again the people of South Africa have been royally stiffed by the national electricity utility company.

Eskom or, by its rightful name, EsCON saw fit to request an international loan from none other than the IMF in order to finance what will be the fourth-largest coal-fired power station in the world.

A coal-fired power station. The fourth-largest of its kind in the world. With a loan from the IMF.

The mind BOGGLES at just how many bad angles those statements conjure up...

Let me deconstruct just how bad this deal is for South Africa and the environment:

1. Climate What?: Whilst the South African government proudly trumpets its 'commitments' to global warming and climate change, it acts as ringmaster and cheerleader for this deal it brokered between its reviled parastatal, EsCON, and the IMF. Experts agree that coal-fired power stations are the number one cause of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Numero Uno. And here we are, Africa's biggest economy, pumping more money into this dirty, filthy technology. With the name of Medupi. To the tune of USD3.75-billion to be exact.

It's greenwashing all over again, typical of governments the world over.

2. Old Hag, Will Travel: Coal-fired power stations are basically updated 19th-century technology. However you dress them and modernize them, they're still filthy and decrepit hags pumping out huge amounts of air pollution and countless other environmental impacts.

3. Renewable Que? Where the hell is this country's REAL and TANGIBLE commitment to alternative energy sources like solar, wind, wave and geothermal, all of which South Africa would possess in plentiful supply? Nowhere, of course. We'd rather shackle ourselves to a 'proven' polluting and frankly filthy energy source like coal, thereby relegating us to never-has-beens in the new global green economy. Such is the power and clout of the coal industry lobby in this country (with the nuclear crowd another bunch of thugs hogging the energy debate in SA), not to mention the collusion between the government, EsCON and major industrial entities that are known to get their electricity in this country (their DIRTY electricity, please note) for below cost. A collusion unchanged since deep in the bad old apartheid era, by the way.

Oh, and a pledge to use some of this money (about R230-million or thereabouts according to the con..ahem...agreement with the IMF) for 'renewable technologies' is frankly in bad taste. It's abit like the biggest loan shark in town loaning a heroin addict $1000 for his heroin habit and telling the addict they must set $75 aside for their rehab. Uh huh. You may call that a 'concession', I call it patronizing to renewable energy.

4. Putting out the Fires: Reading the comments of ministers and EsCON in the media one was given the unmistakable message that unless this Medupi power station is built the entire electricity infrastructure of this country would collapse by next week. Or tomorrow. In fact, make that yesterday. Where the hell does planning come into all of this, you incompetent idiots? It's the oldest, most boring political trick in the book - make a situation seem so bad, so untenable, so utterly URGENT that you will make people desperately accept any old nonsense you feed them, including making us more reliant than ever on dirty, outdated technology. At the very least it's sheer incompetence and bad management. At worst it's...well...

5. Banana Republic - Proof 1: The money has always been there, the scope of South Africa's energy needs has always been known, yet everyone runs around like headless nincompoops insisting that coal energy is the ONLY thing that has ANY chance of staving off the immediate return of South Africa to the Iron Age. And all this nonsense about "how much South Africa has grown since 1994" and "what a surprise" it's been to the government and EsCON is a pile of crap. These lies must stop. Our real GDP each year has barely surpassed 3% per annum, whatever bunch of economic data the government throws at us. This is hardly the People's Republic of China or India in terms of growth...

Yes, more people have electricity these days. Yes, the SA population is growing larger. Big deal. Boo hoo. Where was all the planning? Where were all the contingency plans based on projected demographic and economic growth rates? Nowhere, because incompetent fat cats were too busy lining their pockets at EsCON whilst the government chose to do nothing and this country's coal industry looked on rubbing their dirty hands in glee.

6. Banana Republic - Proof 2: Where there's an IMF loan, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be corruption. Or, in this instance, your bottom 3.75-billion dollars. There have been widespread reports in the country's media and abroad that the governing ANC (or members thereof) will stand to make up to R1-billion (about 2.75% of the total loan amount) what with its close ties to the chief construction company involved in this project. But, of course. Why shouldn't the head honchos in the ruling party not skim the cream off the top of this lucrative deal? It is for the 'better' of the country and they are the ones 'brokering' the deal. Right? Um...no, wrong. The ANC has been in power for too long and acts as such. In fact, it acts like most governments in power.

7. Bring in Da Mafia: Number 7 is such a magic number and so I have left the best for last. Not only does this country see fit to build the fourth-largest coal-fired power station in the world but...wait for it...we will do so with money from the International Mafia Fund! Hurrah! I think the fact we have 'secured' this money from the IMF angers me almost as much as having yet another huge polluting power station in the countryside. I put the word secure in parentheses for dramatic effect, because there's no such thing as 'security' when one is dealing with the biggest legal multilateral Mafia organization in the world.

The IMF, the most destructive, anti-society, anti-liberty, anti-democracy bunch of bastards in the post-WW2 era, has finally gotten its grubby claws right into the flesh of the Rainbow Nation. Where the IMF and its economic henchmen are let in, they never leave without huge socio-political and human rights costs to the host, never mind the ENORMOUS interest on loans this particular Mafia family always make. Just ask Argentina, circa 2002.

The South African government even had the nerve to declare very proudly how South Africa has never requested a loan from the IMF in the post-apartheid era (i.e. post-1994). Great. Thanks so much. And now, in the midst of a global recession that still doesn't let up, you choose to invite the biggest wolf of all into our lair. And you're proud of that? What a bunch of cretins.

With this deal South Africa has whored itself out to two very dangerous clients: meet Dirty Coal and the International MaFiosi.

I cannot yet decide which of these two will prove more costly to this country in the years to come.

Do you get my point?

SITE OF THE DAY: The Sea Shepherds

Making the Sea Shepherds my site of the day is overdue. It's a minuscule gesture, less than a drop in the ocean. But my praise for what this organization fights so hard to do could not be more timely, given just how under attack the ocean's whales are yet again.

Visit their excellent site http://www.seashepherd.org/

This is one of the organizations at the forefront of the fight for our oceans.

The man at the helm is Captain Paul Watson, an outspoken and unstoppable environmental campaigner for over 40 years. If you're looking for a lovable, cuddly captain of the high seas this is not your man. Captain Watson is a cantankerous, often unsmiling man. Warm and effusive are not exactly words you'd associate with him. Just watch the excellent series "The Whale Wars" on National Geographic Channel and you'll know precisely what I mean. One doesn't warm to him as a character. I certainly didn't. But who needs a Mr. Nice Guy when instead you have this man who, along with his many crews over the years, has been tireless in his courageous all-out campaigning against whaling in the southern ocean.

The Sea Shepherds have become (in)famous for their annual treks out into the frigid, icy waters of the Southern Ocean as they track and then hound as many of the Japanese 'scientific' whaling vessels that plow those waters during the southern hemisphere summer. These Japanese vessels wreak havoc wherever they go, killing up to hundreds of these magnificent giant mammals of the ocean, using hunting techniques that are as barbaric as whaling has ever been. And will ever be.

The confrontations between the intrepid Sea Shepherd vessels and the Japanese whalers has often been fraught with danger, even violence. This reality came to light on January 5th this year when the Japanese whaling ship, the Shonan Maru 2, deliberately rammed the Sea Shepherd ultra-modern trimarin, the Ady Gil. Two days later the Ady Gil sank. The event sent shockwaves throughout the world, with images of the ramming flooding newscasts and the Net.

It was a blatant, belligerent and illegal act of violence on the high seas by the Japanese against the ant-whaling protesters. It was assuredly an act in contravention of every maritime law in peacetime. It showed the sheer arrogance and impunity of the Japanese whalers.

Subsequent actions by authorities were appalling, both by the Japanese in their infinite capacity for righteous indignation in the face of their barbarity and the Australians, as ever kowtowing in their role as Resource Whore to the Far East, Japan included, of course.

But who the hell cares in the end. The legal and financial repercussions can never be dismissed outright, of course. But the moral imperative and unyielding spirit of those who work for the Sea Shepherds continues unabated, perhaps even more fired than ever.

This organization has come under tremendous fire from different quarters over the years. Many environmentalists question their tactics, citing the opinion that their actions against whalers are quasi-violent and possibly counter-productive. As if trying to harass whaling ships compares to what the whalers are doing to the whales in terms of violence.

They've even been accused of being attention-seekers. As if being out all alone and exposed on the frigid, often turbulent waters of the southern ocean is somehow glamorous and motivated by grabbing headlines. Yeah, for sure.

Even the well-documented antipathy between Captain Watson's posse and Greenpeace is well known. And so be it - every cause has its rivalries and its factions. Such is human nature.

They may come across like a ragged bunch of adventurers out on the high seas. And the provocative pirate-evoking flag that they use on their anti-whaling forays might be more in keeping with their true persona. But their cause is deadly serious. And for all the right reasons.

Bono is a self-important, attention-hogging wannabe activist schmuck and pompous git who deserves all my contempt. Captain Paul Watson is anything but.

These activists don't only fight for the whales of the oceans. They have campaigns for seals, sharks, dolphins and the unique marine ecosystem of the Galapagos Islands. Their latest campaign in 2010 is 'Operation Blue Rage' and is a fight to stop the overfishing to extinction of the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna. Their flagship, the aptly named Steve Irwin, will depart from New York this Saturday, May 1st, on its way to fight their latest battle in the Mediterranean.

It will be yet another fight by the Sea Shepherds on behalf of the creatures in our oceans, a fight on behalf of the very survival of the oceans and seas themselves.

A fight on behalf of all of us.

And for all of this I salute them.

RANT: Suffer the Whales

It's been over three weeks since I last blogged. Time has just flown by. It's no excuse - I do know that. There's so much to rant about, I simply don't know where to begin. Current history is a veritable Towering Inferno of catastrophic and near-catastrophic events.

History-making, not so positive events, they're coming thick and fast at present. The times they're certainly crazy.

There is the near-collapsing Greek and Portuguese economies and the ongoing thievery by the global financial Mafia bastards to rant about, not to mention an upcoming (and silly) UK election and yet another electricity fiasco right here in South Africa.

More on some of those another time...

Yet nothing upsets me more profoundly than the growing possibility that the existing moratorium on whaling may yet be overturned in June.

It looks very possible that the current moratorium on whaling, which the International Whaling Commission (IWC) passed in 1986, will be a thing of the past in just a few weeks. Many countries, the United States included, are preparing to vote to allow whaling to be legal once again. Unbelievable.

And back we go yet again as a species.

Of course, this time around spurious 'scientific' and even 'conservation' reasons are being cited for this wish to lift the ban. There's always a godforsaken conservation reason. Guaranteed.
Give me any barbaric killing of any animal, and you can bet your last dollar that there'll definitely be sold-out environmentalist-conservationists cheering it on. It happens all the time right here in southern Africa with the ongoing 'culling for conservation purposes' that goes on in our national parks and 'game lodges' of large animals like elephants. Conservationists abound in their approval of those 'kind killings'. Yes, killing can also be very kind. Come on - didn't you know that?!

Quite frankly, I'm sincerely not interested in whatever 'scientific' or 'environmental' reasons there may be for the slaughter of these magnificent animals of whom we still have so much to learn. What's wrong is wrong...no, in fact, what's amoral is amoral.

And here we have the return to the (potentially) wholesale legal slaughter of the largest and amongst the most intelligent animals on Earth.

The Japanese must be toasting with gallons of sake, what with their ongoing massacre of hundreds of whales each year in the southern ocean. Now it will all be totally legal! Sayonara to that. As will be the Norwegian and Icelandic whaling contingencies, bunch of holier-than-thou Scandinavian hypocrites that they are.

'Save the Whales' has yet again become a necessary mantra of the environmental movement and any remotely compassionate person on this planet. It was a campaign at the forefront of the watershed years of the environmental movement back in the 1970s.

Here we are again, 35 years later, and the same fight must be fought yet again. All over again. Talk about being the most fucking redundant species on the planet.

Excuse my extreme language - but that gives you just an inkling of how angry this makes me.

Imagine being at the mercy of us?

Suffer the Whales. Suffer humanity.

Do you get my point?

NOT the Site of the Day: Facebook

Today I made the joyous decision to deactivate my Facebook account. Joyous because I cannot remember the last time a site has so annoyed me.

I resisted joining Facebook for a long time. It just seemed so trite and I've never had much patience for social networking sites. I tire of them so easily. But people kept telling me to give it a go, so in January of this year I finally did and jumped onto the Facebook bandwagon.

And it took me less than three months to bail the hell off THAT wagon.

So, why my hate for this much-loved (and, as I have also discovered of late, much-reviled) site? Well, some of the MANY reasons why I detested being a Facebooker include:

1. It's The Stepford Wives Online Social Forum! The utterly mundane and piss-boring posts by so many people about things they're doing that I would never, ever, EVER be interested in the first place. It's scary just how mundane most people's lives are - and they have the nerve to think I'd actually be interested! Not to mention the all-out chirpiness of it all. It's all so glib and so relentlessly cheery and...well...creepy.

2. Much Ado About Nothing: For all the talk about what wonderful 'networking' one can do on this site (one of the primary reasons I joined) it's all bloody nonsense. Real networking is so limited. Yes, there are some great organizations with profiles on the site and some good causes that can be spread. But they're almost an afterthought in the mental twilight world that is Facebook. And most people really don't care. For the most part, it's just an excuse for social exhibitionism and voyeurism to run rampant and without threat of prosecution.

3. Oops, There Goes My IQ!: The sheer banality of most of the posts coupled with the ENDLESS silly games that some people play on the site ('Mafia Wars', something about a damn zoo and other such mindless crap) and which one - of course - has to be bombarded with, was astounding. It gave me the distinct impression that, for the very first time in my life and barring a few forgettable social instances, I could actually feel the physiological sensations of myself getting more and more stupid...Absolutely scary.

4. The 'Who-the-Bloody-Hell-Are-You?' Game: Never before have I had so many requests from so many people that I either (a) can barely stand it if they're in the same hemisphere as I or (b) I don't have a cooking clue who they are, to simply be their 'friend'. Friend indeed - back-handed slap is more like it.

5. Is This Communication?: On a more serious note, I sincerely have huge doubts regarding the actual value and quality of the communication one gets in the online hell that is Facebook. For one, I was taken aback at how essentially dumb some of the communication was by people who I (once) thought and assumed were actually smart. It was a genuine shock to me.

For another, me listening to what a person had for breakfast or what their precious child did in the school play or how fabulous they think their God is, and which is broadcast willy-nilly to the entire world, is neither personally gratifying for me nor is it real communication. It's just tedious narcissism, quite frankly.

Put it in an e-mail and communicate with me one on one. Even if it is about your breakfast or your child or your God - I'll be more receptive. At least then it validates me as being a real friend to you, and not just one of your hundreds of Facebook 'friends'.

It's the dumbing down of society.

It's the elevation of being trite and glib to that of being smart - when it is not nor should it ever be.

It's further confirmation of the mindless instant gratification era in which we live.

It is the Big Brother TV show syndrome subliminal to one's social interactions.

It is a limited concept given too much online importance and too much value.

It's for some, and not for others.

For a far more amusing and brilliantly scathing attack on Facebook, please follow this link at the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-ostroy/i-hate-facebook_b_178867.html 

The rant against Facebook by Andy Ostroy, a political analyst in New York City, is seriously funny. And seriously true. It's a fantastic diatribe.

As for me with regard to Facebook, it's a case of over and OUT!

Thank goodness.

PERSONAL/ RAVE: My 50th Post

Today I am writing my 50th post on my blog. It's actually quite a milestone for me, given that I had my doubts when I finally commenced it in January of this year that I would have the determination and self-discipline (not to mention interest) to stick to this blogging malarkey.

Well, I have I stuck to this blogging malarkey. And, quite to my surprise, I have really enjoyed doing it. I have found my blogging experience to be a really terrific means by which I can explore and write about (not to mention even vent!) on issues or stories that have meant a lot to me in the past three months.

I keep telling people how invigorating I have found this blogging experience, even cathartic at times. And that is the honest truth.

It has also been an 'intellectual energizer' of sorts. Somehow, it has forced me to do so much more research and online reading than I probably would have ordinarily done. And that has only been to my benefit. 

Writing my posts on this blog has also made me realize that I really love writing, even in this more 'opinionated, op-ed' style, which has been quite different to the mostly narrative (i.e. storytelling) style of private writing I had done up until I started this blog. 

So, for all these reasons and more, I am grateful for this opportunity to write to my heart's content online and in this format.

May I keep being inspired to write more posts, so that I soon reach another 50...and another 50 thereafter...and...well, as long as I'm enjoying this ride.

RANT: (Bad) Luck of the Irish

My rant for today is a follow-on from earlier my rants on the financial crises that have afflicted Iceland and Greece of late. Now it's the turn of Ireland.

The Irish, it would seem from the actions of their government, are not that lucky after all.

Last Tuesday, March 30th, was known as 'Bailout Tuesday' in Ireland. Yet again, the Irish government saw fit to bail out the five biggest banks in that country from their 'financial predicaments', i.e. mountains of bad, bad, bad debt. So, once again, taxpayers in a country are having to bail out the bad (read: greedy and reckless) actions of private financial institutions with public (taxpayer) money. Actions that have basically sunk the Irish economy.

So, yet again, the poor and the middle classes are having to bail out the (stinking) rich. Whoever said that robber capitalism wasn't alive and well?

And to what tune is this bailout? Well, no less than an estimated 81 BILLION EUROS is what the Irish government is expected to buy back in bad debt via its own artificially created 'bad bank' known as the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA - or "VietNAMA" as Max Keiser hilariously referred to it on his most recent show!).

That is a hell of a lot of money in public expenditure that was not exactly budgeted for. Especially when one considers that Ireland's total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 167 billion euros in 2008. So, in effect, the Irish government is buying bad debt created by banks that is worth nearly one-half of the country's entire GDP! Where's a friendly leprechaun when you need one?

Even the man who set up NAMA, Peter Bacon, has likened the actual debt of the bank in biggest trouble, Anglo Irish Bank, to that of "an Irish Chernobyl". Such is the amount of as yet undeclared debt that some of these banks are still hiding for now. Very reassuring indeed.

As was stated in an editorial in the Irish newspaper, the Limerick Post, "No matter what spin the government ministers attempt to put on NAMA and its decision to prop up Anglo Irish Bank, the Irish economy is in tatters...Well in excess of 20 billion Euros is to be pipelined into Anglo, a bank that contributed more than its share in bringing down the Irish economy...This is the very bank that loaned monopoly money to developers, builders and speculators, with no questions asked. The very people facilitated, and the bank's hierarchy, will, unlike the ordinary Joe Soap, see little impact on their personal lives."

The Limerick Post article concludes, "How much more can the public take?"

How much indeed. Quite a lot it would seem, given that the Irish government is set to prop up these banks (yet again) using public money...and no one seems set to stop them doing just that.

Is this a system of capitalism even worth preserving? Is this robber capitalism, masquerading as 'the free market", really what the Irish and most of us in the world must be content with?

Max Keiser has made the statement that, with this latest bank bail-out, the Irish people are for all intents and purposes currently being "occupied" by investment bankers and financial robber barons. Their economy and their political system has been hijacked by the very economic terrorists who got them into this entire mess in the first place. It is indeed an occupation by a hostile force. And because of it Ireland is in the toilet, demoralized, defeated for now. Kaput, essentially.

One can only hope that the Irish will see fit to eventually overhaul their entire banking system and the financial-political Mafia that is currently strangling their economy.

There has been talk of a 'Revolution Sunday' looming in Sunday. Who knows. But change is definitely needed in Ireland. Without that, it is doubtful if their luck will turn around any time soon.

Do you get my point?

SITE OF THE DAY: WikiLeaks

It was inevitable for to me to make Wikileaks the site for today. My last post on this blog was on a huge scandal that erupted yesterday regarding American soldiers firing on to Iraqi civilians from their Apache helicopter back in July 2007 . The massive news story was broken due to the sheer tenacity and bravado of just one site:

WikiLeaks.

I've often heard of this site, but for whatever (stupid) reason have never really taken the time to have a look at what WikiLeaks had to offer (at http://www.wikileaks.com/). That is to my discredit. After hearing about the breaking news on the 2007 massacre of Iraqi civilians by airborne American soldiers, I just had to take a look at the site that had been so instrumental in breaking the story.

Their lead expose on the 2007 Iraq massacre from the air is brilliantly entitled "Collateral Murder".

It's quite a site. It is just one leak after another on some of the biggest news stories and scandals of the last few months. They include leaked documents regarding different aspects of the recent Icelandic financial and banking crisis, as well as a stunning expose by a well-known anti-secrecy online site that was forcibly shut down after exposing a secret manual being used by police and intelligence services regarding user online activities (read: snooping of what people do online), a manual put together by none other than the corporate giant...Microsoft. I'd never even heard of this until I took the time to look at this site today.

There's even an investigation as to what lengths the US Intelligence Service had tried hard to shut down WikiLeaks itself. And that's just on their home page!

Talk about indefatigable journalism - you know, the kind that was once the mainstay of the serious printed media, but which is now long dead due to the corporate takeover of world-renowned newspapers over the past 20 years.

But it's quite shocking to me to read that this invaluable site nearly shut down entirely towards the end of last year owing to a lack of funds. You can see it on the site - it looks so pared down, owing to the site's inability last year to save all its articles and links. The site looks clearly very scaled down - but, thankfully, not out.

And there are quite a few mirror sites that allow one to access some of the older articles and leaks that are currently not available on the official site. One such mirror site is mirror.wikileaks.info - thank goodness for the ongoing spirit of open source and keeping dissent and the truth alive at all costs in the online community.

The good news is that they have raised over 300 000 US dollars to date, which is keeping them afloat - at least for now. They still need to raise more funds. Which is why I too must try to ensure that this site gets as much financial support as possible, even if I do so primarily by spreading the word about what this site does (and means) to other people and potential financial supporters I might know.

It is the least one can do to ensure that a group of people who are trying so hard and so valiantly to do the type of investigative, expose journalism  that is so desperately needed in the world today. As we are fed more and more disgusting corporate hogwash masquerading as news by much of the world's media, so the importance of fact-finding online sites like WikiLeaks, warts and all, must keep growing. Otherwize we will be all the poorer for it.

If knowledge is power, then a site like WikiLeaks is our means to ensure and to harness that power.

Ignorance is not always bliss.

RANT: The Fog of War - Wikileakin' in Iraq

My second rant for today is to do with war again - this time it's Iraq.


And it's sickening.

Thanks to the website WikiLeaks, a video has been leaked to the world media that shows US troops in a helicopter firing indiscriminately onto a group of people, mostly men, walking on a Baghdad street. The 2007 footage, as filmed from the helicopter itself, clearly shows the men being fired upon by the Americans, even after some of them have fallen to the ground in a hail of bullets and are clearly in pain or dying.

The video, courtesy of Wikileaks and as relayed on youtube.com by various posters, says it all. Please take the time to see the footage, courtesy of WikiLeaks, on their website at http://www.wikileaks.com/. Or check out one of the many uploads thereof on Youtube.

It is the modern theatre of war as murder, as seen from a bird's eye view. And the bird is a heinous bird of prey in the shape of an American Apache helicopter.

About a dozen people died in this attack.

Two children were also seriously wounded in the attack, as visible in the footage. Further controversy has been fuelled by the fact that two Reuters reporters were amongst those who came under attack in this footage. Their cameras were mistaken for AK-47s. Both of these journalists died. And Reuters has been looking for answers as to what happened to their two employees for over two years. Now they (and we) know.

The rat-a-tat-tat of the firing on this video clip is a rat-a-tat-tat on our collective conscience.

Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks, asks the pointed question as to what constitutes an 'insurgent' in a modern war such as this. He further makes the brilliant assessment that the soldiers in this combat footage speak and behave as if they were playing some war video game. Except the body count in this particular 'game' is very real.

The gung-ho, super-cool American accents, the whirring of the helicopter blades, the aerial footage in staccato grayish black and white - it's like some surreal video playback from a day's shoot on the set of a Hollywood war film like "Black Hawk Down". Except this is all so real, so real, surreal.

The US Army has declared that the soldiers were within their 'Rules of Engagement' and, therefore, cannot be found guilty of any offences or atrocities.

The bastards.

This is sadly just one more example of what has been referred to as 'the fog of war'. This can be paraphrased as meaning "the level of ambiguity in situational awareness as experienced by combatants during a military operation..." That is, in a nutshell, war is crazy and creates so much uncertainty (i.e. the ambiguity referred to here) that heinous and unjust things can easily happen in that uncertainty (i.e. the 'fog') during a war.

War creates terrible uncertainty and in that 'twilight' of reason (as described by the Prussian military analyst, Carl von Clausewitz) decisions have to be made. War being what it is, these are decisions of life and death.

The fog of war, a fog prevalent in just about every military action, is reason enough to doubt the sanity and the validity of war itself. As if reason were needed in the first place?

This does not excuse the actions of these American soldiers. They are not victims. They are the ready and willing henchman of a war that was immoral, amoral and unjustified. Like most wars tend to be, let's face it.

I am sick and tired of soldiers in this modern era, whatever their nationality, being described as 'hero victims' when they are nothing more than paid, professional hitmen. Long gone is the era of mandatory conscription as occurred in the First and Second World Wars and the Vietnam War, not to mention countless wars before that. At least many of those soldiers could claim that they were forced into combat by their governments. This does not wash in this modern era of professional soldiers.

And even then there were those who refused to fight.

Now in most modern democracies like the US and UK most young men (and women) can just sit back and let others of their generation do the killing. And those who do the fighting are hailed as 'heroes' when they go off to war and as 'hero victims' when they come back in wooden boxes, all because many in these societies are so caught up in their collective guilt at not putting their own lives at risk, amped up by the endless chest-thumping nationalistic nonsense of their media.

But why this guilt? Let the professional soldiers go off and fight these unjust and cynical wars. Let them give up their lives when they get well educated and paid to do so by their military. Let them self-delude themselves into believing that they are 'fighting for their countries', when there is so much information all around them telling them just how stupid and cynical these wars really are. This is not the 'information age' for nothing. They want to be human fodder to justify their lives and possibly even live out their hero complex hang-ups, that's also their problem. I don't do knee-jerk uber-nationalistic emotionalism very well.

Sorry, the only war worth fighting is the just war, the war of (real, tangible) self-defence at the very least. The peacekeeping efforts of a UN force, even if that too at times comes with its own agendas. Fighting the type of mega-cynical, neo-imperial war that has taken place in Iraq since 2003 is simply not worth fighting. You cannot justify that which is indefensible, never mind unjustifiable.

This is not about being anti-American. It's about being pro the living and pro the true meaning of justice and democracy and being accountable for one's actions.

What is the excuse of these modern soldiers, these grunts that have at their disposal weapons of mass destruction of unthinkable destruction and barbarity? Are these the modern warriors so many in warring countries swoon over? Soldiers who see fit to fight in cynical wars, many of them acting out the fantasies and virtual realities of the sickening war video games that they grew up on. It makes my stomach turn that this is where we are as a human species in the second decade of the 21st century.

The soldiers in this disgusting and heart-wrenching video are assuredly not the exceptions in this war. Their actions speak (no, scream) of normative behaviour that is not only blessed by their superiors, but wholly embraced by many of their peers in combat.

The fog of war, in all its sub-human and alienating guise, was clearly alive and well in Iraq.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Deutschland, Why Are You in Afghanistan?

My rant for today has to do with the recent killing of five Afghan police by German troops in that war-torn country. Some things to consider:

- What the hell is Germany of all countries doing in the Afghan debacle? I say "of all countries" given that Germany itself has a huge Muslim population. It was also at the centre of one of the cells of terrorists (the so-called 'Hamburg cell') that did their bit to wreak havoc on September 11th, 2001. Does it make any sense for Germany to be involved in any conflict in the Middle East which will definitely raise the ire of many of its own (and other) Muslim people? Just how safe do all Germans feel with this type of action by their government?

- Why is Germany involved in a war to which over 75% of its population is opposed, according to polls in that country? What is it with these leaders of countries that sees them seeing fit to indulge in ludicrous wars in other countries, when their very own people are so vehemently opposed? We all know what a rightwing heifer Angela Merkel is, but where does democracy and 'the will of the people' enter into this equation? Yes, I know, I know - democracy is only sporadically necessary, e.g. when looking for votes leading up to election day in your own country or pontificating at other countries for their own 'lack' of 'true democracy'.

- Interesting how those five Afghan policemen were killed by German troops just a few days after three German soldiers were killed in that country. Very interesting little coincidence, that one.

- And what is this nonsense about people dying from 'friendly fire'? Just what exactly is meant by this oxymoron of a phrase, used with such wild abandon by the military and the media alike around the world? As if it somehow makes it better than one gets killed because the bullets or bombs or whatever other human-killing paraphernalia comes from one's own side or 'allies'. Or perhaps said bullets or bombs or other killer paraphernalia come up and shakes one's hand just before blowing one's head or body or whatever to bits. Perhaps?

- And, finally, just what is this entire 'international presence' in Afghanistan really all about? What has it ever really been about, besides some cockamamie retaliation against an entire country (read" mostly thousands of innocent civilians) just because the then government gave some shelter and support to al-Qaeda leading up to and after 9/11? Why, pray tell, has Saudi Arabia not been blown to Thy Kingdom Come given that 17 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi nationals, not to mention the fact that their guru and lead henchman, Mr bin-Laden is himself a Saudi?

Yes, yes, I know - Saudi Arabia can't be blown to smithereens given it is a robust democracy renowned for its freedom of speech and sparkling human rights record and non-sexist, non-homophobic and non-racist policies within its own borders. Or maybe it has a little to do with all that oil in Saudi soil and on which so much of the world depends?

 Afghanistan, on the other hand, is just a disgustingly poor country replete with endless mountains, no love for democracy and human rights (unlike the Saudis, of course) and whose only contribution to the world economy is to make people high. They deserve to be blown up into nothingness and told what to do by a bunch of foreigners led, as ever, by that Hypocrite Bastion of Democracy, the United States, and its little poodle sidekick, the UK. Oh, yes, and Germany, amongst a few others.

And don't get me started on the whole 'NATO presence' in Afghanistan thing. You must be making reference to the 'Pentagon in Europe' when mentioning NATO, right?

It's all so utterly pathetic and hypocritical beyond belief. And in the end, thousands upon thousands of Afghan people will have died. Not to mention quite a few soldiers from quasi-democratic states like Germany. 'Quasi democratic' because to hell with what their citizens have to say, right? Countries who have no business poking their Pinocchio-like noses into a region as volatile and as demented as the Middle East.

It's time Germany got its militaristic ass out of Afghanistan. Oh, and you might as well add the UK to that as well. And Poland. And a few other 'well-meaning' countries wishing to stake their claim on the international relations scene, when they should know their voices count for zilch in this world led by the likes of the US, China and Russia. Not to mention  the United States itself.

Get the hell out of Afghanistan, folks.

Or as the Germans would say: RAUS!

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Killer Campaign

The campaign by Greenpeace against Nestle is one of the best examples of agitprop use of video online that I have seen in recent weeks. See it above. And I think it deserves a rave on my blog of its own.

The Greenpeace campaign is directed against Nestle using certain suppliers of palm oil who are doing so by decimating forests in southeast Asia. As ever, animals are in peril of losing their habitat and, as such, dying out. The primate under most threat in this forest loss due to palm oil production is the orang-utan. This primate, one of the closest to us in genetic terms, is the featured species (read: star) of this clip.

Nestle is at it again. It seems that the multinational corporation has been unable to dodge the activist bullets on an almost ongoing basis since the early 1990s. The PR scars of the baby milk formula scandal of the 1990s still runs deep for the giant. And now this.

The play on the very well-known Kit Kat logo with the word 'Killer' is also very, very clever.

Greenpeace has been relentless in its online campaign for this issue. And I'm all for it. Especially as we enter Easter weekend, a time when many of us stuff our faces full of chocolate.

Multinationals need to be made (constantly) aware that their often unethical actions and their gigantic footprints all over world will be under the spotlight in a never ending, unwavering and even annoying manner by activist groups such as Greenpeace. You had it coming to you, Nestle. Want to be a good 'corporate citizen'? Well, live it and be it, baby.

The very fact that multinationals have such gargantuan power, influence and economic clout in just about every country on the planet is reason enough for each and every one of us to be vigilant, vigilant, vigilant.

My hat goes off to Greenpeace on this one. Job well done, folks. Keep it up. Each and every one of us, concerned citizens of the world, need to be made aware of all these corporate crimes. In a way, these NGOs are our eyes, our ears and our rapporteurs.

Above all else, they are also our conscience.