thoughts on afghanistan, paraguay, and iraq:
Remember when the U.S. used to claim things like '250 Vietcong' killed during a firefight, most of whom turned out to be civilians? On April 27 the U.S said 'more than 130 Taliban' were killed after Special Forces called in air strikes during a two-day battle in western Afghanistan. Except local residents said there were no Taliban in the village and that the dead included many women and children. With U.S. and NATO forces relying more and more on air power, large numbers of civilian casualties are inevitable.
(...) Drugs. With the help of the CIA, the U.S.-supported regime in South Vietnam and Laos shipped opium from Laos to Thailand, making the Vietnam War ground zero in the heroin epidemic that gripped Europe and the U.S in the late '60s and early '70s. For details see 'The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia,' and Frontline's 'Guns, Drugs and the CIA.' Well, 2006 was a banner year for opium production in Afghanistan and, according to an investigation by the Financial Times, Afghan government claims that it had eradicated 21,000 hectares of poppies in Kandahar and Helmand provinces 'bore little resemblance to reality.' Afghanistan produces 92 percent of the world's opium.
(...) Meanwhile, a number of NATO members are having second thoughts about the Afghan adventure. A recent Der Spiegel poll indicates that 57 percent of Germans want to withdraw from Afghanistan.
(...) 'It costs a couple of hundred dollars for a bomb,' says Sunil Ram, a professor at the American Military University in West Virginia, 'but they can knock out a $3 million or $4 million vehicle, and kill troops that cost millions of dollars to train.'
[on to paraguay]
(...) Lugo's politics are populist-he calls himself 'the bishop of the poor' and says he is 'inspired by some elements of socialism.' There is a lot to work with in Paraguay. It has the singular distinction of having the most unequal distribution of land in Latin America. Some one percent of the population owns 77 percent of the land.
(...) Benjamin Dangl, editor of Upsidedownworld.com, who has traveled widely in the area, says 'for Paraguay, Lugo is a revolutionary.' Dangl says Lugo could 'significantly' change the culture of repression and corruption, but that 'he is not Evo Morales or Chavez. He isn't likely to do too many radical things economically. Perhaps he will be more like Tabare Vasquez of Uruguay.' He says radicals are more 'hopeful' than they are 'satisfied' with his candidacy.
[iraq]
(...) So why are weapon systems that don't work being sent into war? Because Boeing and Bell made $20 billion off of the V-22, and General Dynamics raked in $11 billion on the Stryker. And now the Army and the Marines are pushing for a new Mine Resist and Ambush Protected (MRAPS) armored vehicle. The Pentagon ordered almost 8,000 of them at a cost of $8.4 billion from the International Truck and Engine and an Israeli armor maker. Plans are to order thousands more. War may be Hell, but for some, Hell is very profitable.