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Tripledoc
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
the US gave the SPLA aid in return for human rights improvements, and some NGOs disagreed with this strategy, and this was five years ago. And this proves a conspiracy somehow? |
How do you know that President Clinton demanded "human rights" improvements in return for military aid to the rebels?
What it proves is that the Us is supporting the rebels. It is not a conspiracy, it is policy.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:34
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current UNSC res situation
'US Ambassador John Danforth said the new text was not a weakening of the draft - simply "UN speak" had replaced the word "sanctions".
Article 41 refers to "measures not involving the use of armed force" to enforce decisions.
These measures include "complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations".
Seven Security Council members - Pakistan, China, Russia, Algeria, Angola, the Philippines and Brazil - had pushed for the reference to sanctions to be removed because they believe Khartoum needs more time to act.
Mr Danforth said the US hoped the resolution would receive unanimous support. '
Plan is to vote Friday.
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Tripledoc
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
These measures include "complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations".
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In other words you are going to starve them out.
So the US supports a rebel faction fighting against a legitimate and soveriegn government. They allow the civil war go on for say ten years. Both sides commits genocide against the other side. That is practical, since for instance in Nigeria local tribes have been attacking oilfields because they pollute their territory. So then there are no people. Finally to put the last nail in the coffin sanctions are imposed on the central government so the capital will start starving.
Quite possibly secret overflights of the Sudanese terrirtory will commence shortly. These are designed to spray chemicals on cloud formations, causing flashfloods, and prevent any normal rain decipitation. Just like in Cuba.
Regarding Madeline Albright why would you trust her to impose human rights. She after all said that 500..000 dead Iraqi children were a a price she was willing to pay to topple Saddam.
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Tripledoc
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quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
That's priceless. 
I mean, even if we were to consider your over-arching theory - that the U.S. manufactures these "human rights disasters" so that it can intervene and steal natural resources - that bit is just so preposterous.
-Arrian |
From:
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II by William Blum
During 1969 and 1970, the CIA deployed futuristic weather modification technology to ravage Cuba's sugar crop and undermine the economy. Planes from the China Lake
Naval Weapons Center in the California desert, where hi tech was developed, overflew the island, seeding rain clouds with crystals that precipitated torrential rains over non-agricultural areas and left the cane fields arid (the downpours caused killer flash
floods in some areas).{22}
22. Hinckle and Turner, p. 293, based on their interview
with the participant in Ridgecrest, California, 27 September
1975.
http://members.aol.com/bblum6/cuba.htm
Also:
As Noam Chomsky described it in a speech in Boston:
"According to the New York Times there are 7 to 8 million people in Afghanistan on the verge of starvation. That was true actually before September 11th. They were surviving on international aid. On September 16th, the Times reported, I'm quoting it, that the United States demanded from Pakistan the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population."
http://struggle.ws/freeearth/war/hungerNOV01.html
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:34
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I'd be willing to be there are real kernels of truth in there somewhere. Your thread is scattershot and I'm not sure why the hell half the things you've postered are even relevent. What the hell do the Khazars have to do with genocide in Sudan?
Some point in general. Human Rights Watch has been on my **** list since they decided to play a bit of politics and lobied for Plan Columbia, saying that they'd rather have a place at the table and try and influence the plan, rather than try to defeat it given that almost certainly the U.S. was going to overlook the human rights provisions in the bill and give Columbia military aid regardless of how many peasants it massacred and tortured.
Amnesty International is on my **** list because what counts as torture and evidence of torture for ever other country in the world (broken bones, beatings, etc.) is (was) not considered torture with regards the state of Israel. So if prisoners in Guatemala turn up with broken bones, that's prima facea evidence of torture, but if Palestinian prisoners had broken bones, well, there's no evidence of torture.
Be that as it may, the reports the two organizations generate are generally well sourced, factually detailed, and are rarely supportive of the West. They do admit to being fooled occassionally, as was the case in Kosovo. If these groups say that genocide is occurring in Darfur, it should be taken seriously, and not seen as evidence of imperialist designs on Sudan.
Next: Sudan is a beastly government, that is probably far worse than Hussein's. It's up there near the top on my list of countries I wouldn't protest the U.S. invading. (It's a short list, though). It practices slavery, it has been waging a genocidal war against the southerners for almost 20 years.
Given that, however, the question of whether genocide is occurring in Darfur is a valid one. The number of reported deaths is very low, when we are talking genocide in general and Sudan specifically. Also, most groups tend to describe the human catastrophes they monitor in hyperbolic fashion. They need to in order to get jaded Westerners' attention for money and aid for their "wards." Could this be the case in Darfur/Chad.
Coming, as it does, however, at the ten year anniversery of the Ruwandan genocide, we are definately sensitive to making sure we don't blow it again. I would rather err on the side of justice than to watch another Ruwanda occur in Darfur.
Now in general, just because the imperialist West is engaged in a war with Islamic extremism does not mean that Islamic extremism is anything with which to empathyze. Being a leftist does not mean knee-jerk opposition to the West. Consider Marx's writing in support of Austria-Hungary's wars in the Balkans. He felt some people weren't ready for self-government (because they weren't economically developed enough to sustain themselves). Marx frequently writes about capitalism as a progressive force, and while generally that era has passed, we shouldn't blindly react against West or its agents.
Islamic fundimentalism is a regressive force in human history. While I don't necessarily accept the label of fascism, it certain draws from the same well-spring as that movement, and has many of the same goals. It is an enemy of human progress, much more so that capitalism or imperialism. If the Soviets and the West could unite against Hitler, the socialists and imperialists can unite against Islamic fundimentalism.
Note for others: Iraq, being a modern and more or less secular society doesn't fall under my standards.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Azazel
LoTM: sanctions are stupid in any case. Someone has to go in. ( I wish I could be sent in. ) |
as ive discussed with Arrian, earlier, whether or not sanctions might work (and in SOME cases they do - there are a number of variables, including how complete the sanctions are, and how much the country being sanctioned cares about the policy its being sanctioned for) its virtually impossible to get the UNSC to support military intervention without threatening sanctions first. And no the US isnt going in alone. Would the europeans be willing to go in without a UNSC resolution, as in Kosovo?? Maybe, but I doubt it, unless the thing gets dramatically worse, from ethnic cleansing with murders and rapes, to actual genocide, in the sense of the govt trying to kill as many as possible.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Tripledoc
In other words you are going to starve them out.
So the US supports a rebel faction fighting against a legitimate and soveriegn government. |
I'm not sure- are you saying the U.S. are at fault for being consistent or inconsistent?
1776- American rebels fight against the legitimate and sovereign government of the British Empire
1898- the United States' government assists Cuban and Filipino rebels against the legitimate and sovereign government of the Spanish Empire
The Viet Nam War- The United States props up the corrupt despotic regimes of South Viet Nam, fighting the rebel Viet Cong/Viet Minh.
Oh, well, clearly that last one is a bit of a mistake, when what the U.S. should have done is aid the Viet Cong/Viet Minh.
So tell me, Triple, old bean, exactly to whom should the United States have given aid and comfort- the Palestinians, the Kurds, the Irish, the Filipinos, the Cubans, the Sandinistas, FARC, the Mujahideen, the Moro Liberation Front, Vaclav Havel, Andrei Sakharov, the Maquis, or does it depend on whether you approve or disapprove of the state in question?
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Tripledoc
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
[Q] There's a difference between spraying chemicals and pests on Cuba, and seeding rain clouds to cause flash floods. One is a known technology. The other is wing-nut fantasy stuff. |
Actually 'cloudbusting' is an established technology. The Russians use it all the time over Moscow, especially on 1st of may. Gives nice sunny weather.
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Tripledoc
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Cloudbusting Means It Never Rains ... Or It Pours
By Irina Titova
STAFF WRITER
Photo by Alexander Belenky / SPT
It's hardly surprising that most self-respecting St. Petersburg residents treasure their umbrellas so highly, as the city's climate has been a problem since its foundation almost 300 years ago. The main problem is precipitation: It rains in fall, drizzles in spring, snows in winter, and not even a sunny summer day is immune from a torrential downpour.
Sometimes, however, the clouds can hold off for weeks. During the fortnight of the Goodwill Games in summer 1994, for example, the sun miraculously shone all the time - a rather weird, dim light, as though through some fog or shroud. And the first drop of rain from a thunderstorm hit the ground just a minute after the closing ceremony.
"Yes, we worked hard at that time," said Sergei Okunev of the St. Petersburg Geophysics Observatory, one of Russia's top experts on the practicalities of cloud-seeding technology, or cloudbusting.
During the Goodwill Games, Okunev said, specially equipped airplanes were kept busy making sure it didn't rain by seeding the clouds with certain chemical reagents that either induce or inhibit precipitation - in other words, to make it rain sooner or later.
However, he said, cloudbusting is a far cry from the stereotypical image of North American native chiefs banging on wardrums and hollering at the sky. Today's cloudbusters use various chemical reagents, such as iodized silver, liquid nitrogen and solid carbonic acid, either individually or in combinations.
"It needs really experienced meteorological experts," Okunyev said. "They have to be able to diagnose the type of cloud, its distance from the desired or undesired location, and how much reagent is needed to get the necessary effect."
Attempting to control the weather is not a new phenomenon here - Soviet scientists began investigating ways to influence events in the 1930s, following an order by Joseph Stalin. The researchers tackled questions including regulating rainfall, warding off hail, dispersing fog and preventing avalanches.
"There were quite a number of areas in which those technologies were in high demand," said Viktor Petrov, deputy head of Atmosphere Technologies Agency ATTECH in Moscow, naming "agriculture, aviation, traffic, hydro-electric power, forestry and city life."
Even with dozens of scientists at meteorological laboratories all across what was then the Soviet Union, it took years to accumulate the necessary know-how to, for example, disperse hail-bearing clouds threatening the entire grape harvest in Moldova and Georgia, redirect rainclouds to drought-hit agricultural areas, or disperse fog from around airports or large road junctions.
"It was a massive task, which required collaboration between many services, such as forecasters, and those that developed the equipment and the chemicals," said Georgy Schukin, head of the Long-Range Atmospheric Probing Scientific Center, or DPASC, a branch of the Geophysics Observatory.
The DPASC, located in the village of Voyeikovo, 30 kilometers east of St. Petersburg, spent years working on developing ecologically pure, efficient and cheap reagents for the tasks at hand.
Petrov said the chemicals used today are ecologically clean and don't damage the health of anyone caught up in the precipitation caused.
"We use substances originating from the atmosphere itself," he said.
Another aim of the research was the ability to guarantee sunny weather for large cities during official celebrations, thereby generating the required festive spirit.
"The country particularly needed the service for big national celebrations like October Revolution Day, on Nov. 7, or Victory Day, on May 9, in Moscow," Petrov said. "Big sports events like the 1980 Olympic Games also needed it."
In 1986, experts were scrambled to prevent rainfall within a 30-kilometer radius of the nuclear-power plant at Chernobyl, after a reactor exploded on April 26, causing massive doses of radioactive pollution in the area.
"We were told not to let rainclouds reach the area to save the Pripyat River from radioactive rainfall," Petrov said.
According to Okunev, the research did not always go as planned.
"A long time ago, while we were still researching the technology, I had a curious experience when, instead of preventing a hailcloud from damaging a harvest, we caused even more hail to fall, due to miscalculating the amount of reagent," he said.
Today, Petrov said, the cloudbusters almost never fail, although the work may be seriously complicated by atmostpheric warm fronts, which cover huge areas with rainclouds, or by the prevailing winds.
"Sometimes, that's hard to explain to the client," he said.
ATTECH, founded in 1999, was the first commercial cloudbusting organization in Russia. Since then, it has been contracted to work in places as diverse as Uzbekistan, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Italy, Syria and Portugal.
"Uzbekistan calls us twice a year to provide a clean sky for their big celebrations in Tashkent on March 21 and in September," Petrov said.
However, the process is expensive: Leasing an airplane can cost from $200 to $800 per hour, depending on the craft's class; fuel adds some $320 per hour; while the experts' time and airport taxes also increase the price.
"Two days of meteorological defense of Moscow costs 10 million rubles [$322,000]," Petrov said.
However, with St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary looming like a stormcloud on the horizon in May, Petrov said that no orders regarding the weather have, as yet, been placed by the City Administration or anyone else.
"Of couse, we would get a team together to help the city," he said. "But nobody's asked us yet."
Or could it just be that the city wants to sell more umbrellas?
http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/856/top/t_9110.htm
I should note that the article was posted 1st of April. I don't know if they practice aprils fools day in Russia, but judge for yourself.
Last edited by Tripledoc on 30-07-2004 at 02:03
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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:34
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quote:
ATTECH, founded in 1999, was the first commercial cloudbusting organization in Russia. Since then, it has been contracted to work in places as diverse as Uzbekistan, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Italy, Syria and Portugal.
"Uzbekistan calls us twice a year to provide a clean sky for their big celebrations in Tashkent on March 21 and in September," Petrov said. |
Funny, you would think if this were true it would get more press. I googled "ATTECH" and "Atmosphere Technologies Agency" and the links were either totally irrelevent, or a link to your article, or a link to an article saying similar stuff about Putin ordering sunshine for some celebration: http://www.21stcenturyradio.com/art...03/0529199.html .
If a company exists to sell this as a service, and had actually done so in several countries, surely one could find them on the web, or other articles about it. Controlling the weather? That would be a BIG deal.
Smells like bullshit to me.
-Arrian
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29-07-2004 21:36
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