Terrain and Resources

IL Federal Art Project, WPA
Artist: John Buczak
Library of Congress
I always think I'm attuned to changing language—and ready to bristle at new euphemisms and manipulative usages. But until waking to the sound of this on Monday, the military "Human Terrain System" got by me for years.

Immediate reaction—
in this country, we're Human Resources; the whole world is potential Human Terrain.

NPR's story, "Marines Tap Social Sciences In Afghan War Effort," opens with a visit to a sympathetic (and apparently blond) figure, who

...stood out at a recent meeting that Marine and Afghan army commanders held with local farmers and shopkeepers. Tall and fair, the 36-year-old researcher was dressed in an Afghan headscarf and Marine uniform, the only woman in the group.

The segment continues with a board member of the American Anthropological Association, a group that for years has pointed out the ethical problems. Morning Edition's tone implies that some pesky academics object to this program's good intentions.

David Price, a member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, provides more detail: Human Terrain Systems Dissenter Resigns, Tells Inside Story of Training's Heart of Darkness.

A statement by that dissenter, John Allison, "Summary Critique of Human Terrain Systems from a Trainee's Perspective," is at the end of Price's piece. Judging from Allison's account, the program's rationale is that "experts" will reveal the secrets of the native mind, while lending a humane, social sciences face to the occupiers as they pacify the formerly inscrutable.

With retired military recruiting the social scientists and cashing in on the contracting fees.

Davis describes the culmination of the training course: a war-game exercise set in a Midwest town "where environmentalist-separatists had taken over" a power plant and "broken away from US control." The trainees are to

1. 'Find out more details on the criminal activity.'
2. Find out the best conduits to pass 'information' (PsyOps and InfoOps) to the local population.
3. ... produce a 'Research Plan' to understand the situation at the ... power plant – people's concerns, desires, etc., and identify those who were 'problem-solvers' and those who were 'problem-causers,' and the rest of the population whom would be the target of the information operations to move their Center of Gravity toward that set of viewpoints and values which was the 'desired end-state' of the military's strategy.

When other Americans are viewed this way, you just know the approach toward the occupied—what with their dark skin and wrong religion—will go so very well.

In other news of our noble military endeavors, there's the transcript at the end of this account of Gen. McChrystal's recent chat with the troops. He is asked this—

On escalation of force, have you considered engaging the local community on the issue? We could explain at the brigade/battalion level what behavior we find threatening, and how we are trained to react when we feel threatened. We could negotiate with the community leaders over mutually agreeable actions and reactions that are better understood by both and gives part ownership of the issue to the community and empowers them in line with our approach to reintegration.

If nothing else, the social sciences in Afghanistan have imprinted some jargon on this questioner.

In a gee-whiz response, McChrystal admits he can't answer, but

...we certainly ought to be doing that. We have so many escalation of force issues, and someone gets hurt in the process, and we say, 'They didn't respond like they were supposed to.'

...in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it. That doesn't mean I'm criticizing the people who are executing. I'm just giving you perspective. We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.

As I read this on Monday, Wikileaks has revealed one case of the military surveying the Iraqi human terrain—and finding video game targets.

Chris Floyd writes about counting upon the American people to rise up at this shocking revelations of this video.

...A few days late for April Fool, but, one gets the idea.

Back in the Homeland, some human resources owned by this guy are turned into ex-resources.

Blankenship may not own West Virginia outright, but it's not for lack of effort.

If there are any penalties to be paid for this latest disaster, they will be a very small calculation against the profits of unregulated, non-union mining. All goes well, when you're a Person in terms of dumping corporate profits into political control, but not a person subject to criminal prosecution.

While, those wacky French do this—

The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into allegations of "workplace harassment" at France Telecom following a spate of suicides at the company...

In other recent news: it's so good to know those paragons in the Catholic hieararchy control our elections and Supreme Court.

Naturally, it's the liberals' fault. Or as Tintin translates from Ross Douthat's column on the NYT "Pope-Ed Page"—

Roman Catholic priests like to schtup altar boys because liberals in the 70s promoted free love.

From another Tintin post:

It's totally unfair for liberals to blame the Pope for the current pederasty kerfuffle because the Roman Catholic Church is just so enormous that, in fact, the Pope has absolutely no power over it and can't do anything to discipline pedophile priests no matter how hard he tries.

To mark April 1, I had planned to post some typical "things are great—look how well the rich are doing" story.

I couldn't find it on that date, it was there—in Forbes—

What The Top U.S. Companies Pay In Taxes
Christopher Helman, 04.01.10, 3:00 PM ET

As you work on your taxes this month, here's something to raise your hackles: Some of the world's biggest, most profitable corporations enjoy a far lower tax rate than you do--that is, if they pay taxes at all.
The most egregious example is General Electric. Last year the conglomerate generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.
...

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. Exxon has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas. Likewise, GE has $84 billion in overseas income parked indefinitely outside the U.S.

Forbes' motive in covering this at all, of course, is to catapult the "US corporate taxes are exorbitant" propaganda

... it's the tax benefit of overseas operations that is the biggest reason why multinationals end up with lower tax rates than the rest of us. It only makes sense that multinationals "put costs in high-tax countries and profits in low-tax countries," says Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation. Those low-tax countries are almost anywhere but the U.S. "When you add in state taxes, the U.S. has the highest tax burden among industrialized countries...

And to conclude

"The average Joe should be in favor of lower corporate taxes," says Hodge, "because ultimately they are paying the corporate income tax. Either as workers, getting lower wages and fewer jobs, or as consumers, paying higher prices, or as retirees, getting lower dividends and earnings on their investments."

What do dates mean, anyway—when the owners can play April Fool jokes on us proles every day of the year.

Before the week was out, there was this latest No-One-Could-Have-Predicted pose by our financial geniuses:

Prince, Rubin Say They Didn't Recognize Citi's CDO Risk in Time.