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Six months ago crossedcrocodiles.org took note of two items that surfaced in the same week in July 2012 which seemed related, although not intentionally so; xcroc added 1 = 1 and got ‘Uh-oh’. (Xcroc’s ‘about me’ page is here; he’s been tracking AFRICOM since its inception in 2007). One was this Marine Corps ad that played during the 2012 Euro Cup commercials that William Easterly at NUDRI had called ‘the worst promotional video of all time’, and said:
Mr. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, you are now obligated to finance an equally high profile ad that will present the other side, i.e. theory and evidence against the model of Development at Gunpoint.
;
‘And when the time comes…we’re the first to move toward tyranny, injustice…and despair’. Did you happen to notice the convoys of cartons or crates stamped: AID? (still photo here) We probably don’t need to hold a contest guessing what’s in the boxes, eh?
Crossed Crocodiles:
The target audience of the commercial included vast numbers of people from the majority of the world whose states the Index labels failed or failing.
This is aid at gunpoint, it is also called stability operations, the reason the US Africa Command was created. The notion of stability is meant to be incoherent. It needs to be redefined for each country whose resources the US wants to acquire. Stability operations are needed to quell and control any groups or individuals who may stand in the way of perceived US interests, including acting against legally constituted governments.
Military aid and questionable trade are the twin pillars of US involvement in Africa. Imperial acquisition masquerades as humanitarian aid and manifests as the militarization of the continent through the US Africa Command, AFRICOM. Of course AFRICOM’s fact sheet speaks about working with military partners. These partners are intended to be proxies or surrogates that will provide stability without accountability for corporate interests to extract resources.
The other event was that Foreign Policy and The Fund For Peace (quite a misnomer, lol) released their annual Index of Failed States (interactive map here).
Taking note that almost all the African nations were represented as ‘critical’ or ‘in danger’ of failing, the folks at Africa Is a Country pushed back at the report.
The index is so flawed in its conception, so incoherent in its structuring criteria, and so misleading in its presentation that from the perspective of those who live or work in those places condemned as failures, it’s difficult to receive the ranking as anything more than a predictable annual canard issued from Washington, D.C. against non-Western — and particularly African — nations. [snip]
The problem is that there are any number of reasons why the Fund for Peace might decide that a state is failing. The Washington-based think tank has a methodology of sorts, but Foreign Policy insists on making the list accessible primarily through a series of “Postcards from Hell.” Flipping through the slide show, it’s impossible to shrug off the suspicion that the whole affair is a sloppy cocktail of cultural bigotries and liberal-democratic commonplaces — a faux-empirical sham that packs quite a nasty racialized aftertaste. How do we know if a state is failing or not? Old chestnuts like the rule of law are certainly considered, but also in play are things like economic growth, economic “success,” poverty, inequality, corruption, nonstate violence, state violence, human rights abuses, body counts, terrorism, health care, “fragility,” political dissent, social divisions, and levels of authoritarianism. And yes, we’ll be indexing all of those at once, and more.
The golden principle by which this muddle is to be marshaled oh-so-objectively into a grand spectrum of state failure coefficients is apparently the idea of “stability.”
While the authors didn’t openly question the biased report’s underlying purpose, they proceed to debunk misinformation, false metrics and back-door suggested that the US should be colored orange or burnt orange. (page two) But hey; they colored Canada more stable than the US, so whaddya want?
Segue to the ‘Commander’s Intent’ portion of AFRICOM’s mission statement:
Our purpose is twofold: 1) to protect the U.S. homeland, American citizens abroad, and our national interests from transnational threats emanating from Africa; and 2) through sustained engagement, to enable our African partners to create a security environment that promotes stability, improved governance, and continued development. Should preventive or enabling efforts fail, we must always be prepared to prevail against any individual or organization that poses a threat to the United States, our national interests, or our allies and partners…
They set a pretty low bar for the ‘help’ they provide; oy: ‘improved’, continued’, etc. Reading through the rest of the sections might turn a person into a bit of a cynic, but in the ‘Security Cooperation Programs’ Maritimes section is another bit about ‘engaging in activities with international partners and governmental/non-governmental organizations to enhance African partner nations’ self sustaining capability to effectively maintain maritime security within their inland waterways, territorial waters, and exclusive economic zones, yada, yada. ‘Our national interests’ should read ‘our Lords of Capital’s interests’, but we knew that. We’re also only too familiar with the lofty aims off ‘partnering with and training’ host nations’ military forces, as well as those NGO’s like the International Stability Operations Association (ISOA), *formerly* the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA: sourcewatch has a a bit of a 2012 expose on them here), founded by my old friend Doug Brooks who used to visit my posts on contractors and mercenaries back in my TPM Café days. I drew a few Monsanto flaks at another site as well.) But these are essentially umbrella organizations for security contractors and ‘development’ contractors, an insanely burgeoning industry, as in: protecting the American Embassy in Benghazi, the US mega-base in Iraq, ‘helping out Haiti with security and rebuilding’; a host of other profitable ventures masquerading as ‘humanitarian’.
AFRICOM’s ‘tasks’ include first and foremost, to:
Deter or defeat al-Qaida and other violent extremist organizations operating in Africa and deny them safe haven.
Zo. Given that our empire is eye-balling China (and a few other nations like Maylasia, Turkey, etc.) as a major threat to the multinationals of the West securing control of mineral, water and land resources in Africa, the military ‘pivot’ is not only toward the China Sea, but the ‘unstable or failed states’ of Africa. William Easterly says that ‘a failed state’ is simply one which somebody is advocating invading.
So what training is the military envisioning? Both the Navy and Marines have been developing Marine Air Ground Task Forces (and ‘seabasing’) as seen in the video above. But in the end, their web pages don’t focus so much on the training angle.
Please watch the short video here; here; the arrogance is simply astounding. I did my best to provide a (rush) transcript:
“The fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War fundamentally altered the global security environment…but regional, local and internal conflicts have been on the rise. In recent years, the rise of failed and failing states and the growing presence of increasingly capable non-state actors has presented the US and its coalition partners with new military challenges. Concurrently, US forces face an increasing number of access challenges, including geography, potential adversaries’ capabilities, and host country concerns which prohibit access to their ports, airfields, and territory in the pursuit of action, and finally: domestic US and coalition political sentiment against large troop presence in ‘non-permissive operating environments’. The closing of US bases around the world, and austere port and infrastructure; international and domestic sentiments against a large troop presence in a foreign country, or even outright denial of US military presence have all limited the number of troops placed ashore.
Keeping the teeth ashore…and the tail at sea maximizes force protection and minimizes risk. Operating from a seabase bypasses the need to secure host nation support for a large troop presence. Seabasing mitigates many of the challenges of the current and future security environment by providing an innovative way to conduct joint operations from the sea. Seabasing allows for strategic agility to rapidly project power and influence anywhere in the world without reliance on fixed landbases.”
And in zoom the amphibious craft to the shores of those ‘host nations’, welcoming, recalcitrant…it doesn’t matter much. The Navy and the Marines will bring the stability they want for you!
Some folks say that AFRICOM claimed it was designed as Rumsfeldian humanitarian, and like NATO, could use ‘genocide’ and ‘atrocities’ as political justification to ride, fly, or float to the rescue of another (unstable) nation. Diana Johnstone wrote at counterpunch on the subject, including R2P, sovereignty issues, and engineered ‘atrocities’. I’m sure she didn’t mean to be cynical:
A number of former U.N. peacekeepers have testified that Muslim forces in Bosnia carried out the infamous “Marketplace bombings” against Sarajevo civilians in order to blame their Serb enemies and gain international support.
How could they do such a horrid thing? Well, if a country’s leader can be willing to “massacre his own people”, why couldn’t the leader of a rebel group allow some of “his own people” to be massacred, in order to take power? Especially, by the way, if he is paid handsomely by some outside power – Qatar for instance – to provoke an uprising.
A principal danger of the R2P doctrine is that it encourages rebel factions to provoke repression, or to claim persecution, solely to bring in foreign forces on their behalf. It is certain that anti-Gaddafi militants grossly exaggerated Gaddafi’s threat to Benghazi in order to provoke the 2011 French-led NATO war against Libya. The war in Mali is a direct result of the brutal overthrow of Gaddafi, who was a major force for African stability.
R2P serves primarily to create a public opinion willing to accept U.S. and NATO intervention in other countries. It is not meant to allow the Russians or the Chinese to intervene, say, to protect housemaids in Saudi Arabia from being beheaded, much less to allow Cuban forces to shut down Guantanamo and end U.S. violations of human rights – on Cuban territory.
It’s not known how many US troops, mercenaries, CIA, JSCOC forces, et.al. are in Africa already, but we now know that the US has finally secured permission (‘…to fight Africa Extremists’) from Niger to build a drone base in Niger, a great location in the middle of a mess of failed states. Stories of branch Al Qaeda atrocities in Mali are ubiquitous, of course as they need to be to sell the ‘interventions’. Since French President Francois Hollande and friends seem to be intent on re-colonizing Mali, Algeria and other former colonies, the US wants to…help. So we’re helping their planes refuel in midair, providing communications assistance, and now the State Department has figured out how to help in more material ways…legally, or what their attorneys could call legal.
Ramzy Baroud at Zcommunications.org has a good piece on the major opportunities for war and security contractors like British security firm G45 (the largest in the world) and others in Mali, Libya and Algeria, but as he says: not much security for the refugees. He describes the events in Mali fairly simply, including the cast of players (the Tuareg, AQIM, et.al.) and recent history, and France’s chosen role in the new mess that Hollande admits will last as long as…it lasts.
And now…into the home stretch. Here is Maurice Carney, cofounder of Friends of Congo speaking with Paul Jay back in May of 2012:
Soft-spoken truths. He may have low-balled China’s involvement in Africa, it’s hard for me to know. But some of the major dam projects are playing hell with ordinary Africans and the ecosphere.
China’s world’s largest hydropower company Sinohydro has had their bids accepted for several more projects in the Sudan, which will certainly cause even more eco-devastation and human devastation, this time in Nubia and downstream. China has financed earlier projects, the previously linked Huff-po piece tracks some of the history and nasty effects.
Given that the US is supporting so many bad guys/worst guys on the continent, and the amount of strategic minerals there are to be plundered,, and the availability of corrupt national leaders, none of it bodes well for the African people. It’s hard to think that the African 99% will be able to create existences of their own choosing and governance anytime in the future, but never if foreign powers remain to make sure of it.
From Christian missionaries to centuries of colonization by Europeans, from ruination of local self-sustaining agriculture throughout much of the continent that helped to create massive drought, hunger, and Diasporas, an AIDS epidemic like no other, slave trading…to the present re-colonization after successful revolts against their ‘owners’, and the new regimes like in South Africa still treating workers like dogmeat, my heart goes out to the people of Africa.
May the Great Awakening of higher consciousness aid them in their struggles.
70 Comments
Wow, wendydavis. Another shoe drops, this time from the Navy/Marines; I diaried the Air Force view earlier. Wonder what the Army has in mind. No doubt the idea is quick in and quick out. But the films only show the heroic troops going into a country. Not a good sign.
So we’re worried about failed states, are we? I do believe the logic is that our enemies are not motivated by policy but by some unnameable hatred of the US. You know, they hate our freedoms. In spite of the fact that over and over there are statements about the policies that non-state actors opposed and visions of policies that they want to see. I see Fund for Peace and FP as representing the conventional wisdom in foreign policy circles. This bedwetting over failed states is not a good sign at all. I don’t think it’s a sucker punch; I think there is a real anxiety there of the what would they do to us if we were down variety. And I think that some of the arguments from resources are overblown. But if you want to see some of the players, Mining Companies of the United States. But there are other foreign policy goals of empire besides resources.
Put these together and it’s Bush’s Somalia policy redux on steroids — no frigging Black Hawk Down this time. Or that seems to be the visual message from the Marines.
It’s all to easy to get wrapped up in Western civilization guilt and forget that a lot of these countries have been the rump end of someone’s empire from the beginnings of recorded history. The pain and anger is at seeing that unlike our pretensions of bringing an end to the cycle (an American conceit of the 1950s and 1960s that has been cynically exploited since), the US is becoming blatant and open about its intentions. But it is naive to think that Russia or China or Saudi Arabia or whatever other external players will make things better.
Maurice Carney makes the valid point that China is using its economic wealth and not its military to conclude favorable deals with African countries. That might just be the way that comparative advantages shake out in policy or it might be major differences in the models of empire that China and the US are pursuing. One scholar of Chinese policy argues that China pursues a tributary empire in which client states gift it advantageously but where in all other respects China lets the local rulers have discretion whereas the US and other European countries either use puppets or viceroys. (In Iraq, the US used both; Paul Bremer was the viceroy.)
Come to think of it, I think I know what the Army might have in mind. France has already tested it out in retaking Tombouctou. It is good old Airborne. Massive parachute drop. Watch for some US movement in that direction as to posture.
As an exercise revisit Eisenhower’s foreign policy. Reliance on CIA ops in Guatemala and Iran, Marine landing in Lebanon, surveillance of Soviet Union from U-2s. This is what the new posture is beginning to look like.
Hoping for a resurgence of a popular movement in this country to deal with national security policy. This sort of nonsense is why I went to Chicago.
But the public needs to see some practical alternatives to be able to wean off of military Keynesianism and empire. We have to address the fears that keep driving this crazy policy.
Loads of interesting sentences, and I may not be able to respond or ask more about them all tonight. (headachey and a bit soul-weary, I confess)
This: ‘I see Fund for Peace and FP as representing the conventional wisdom in foreign policy circles’…for me the conventional wisdom is more (nefariously) in aid of empirical control than actual fear of ‘those who hate us or wish us harm’, although I think we’re creating enemies at an alarming rate by our foreign misadventures. Some piece I read for this called FP ‘a Rockefeller Rag’. ;o) There are very few authors there I trust even half way any more, but then…I can say the same about AJE, so… ;o)
What’s you allusion to the mining companies? That Mali and much of the continent is so full of extractable resources? Diamonds, gold, uranium, oil…so many others?
Yes, the long history of subjugation of the continent, and a few attempts at replacing colonial masters, plus a few legitimate uprisings or electoral victories that were set aside (Algeria, for one, iirc), and now all this.
Interesting take your Chinese scholar has vis a vis China’s ‘tributary’ relatively hands-off policy, but Mr. Carney seemed to hold the same opinion as far as ‘doing business’ as a practical matter,not being involved in internal machinations. Viceroy Paul Bremer, Medal of Freedom recipient. I dunno, THD, what’s next for the Army’s plans, and I guess I missed your Air Force post. But none of it bodes well for the Dark Continent, and I really hate it.
Thank you, and sleep well. Our National Guard is awake. ;o)
Any word on which war theater your son is going to serve in?
Re the mining companies. If there is a resource motive, one of those companies will show up as having or wanting a concession in the country of interest to the US. It’s just a more specific form of “follow the money”.
Or…many companies, I reckon. I’m about to turn into a pumpkin; g’night.
;o)
“That is a fight we have a dog in,”
DefenseNews, Jan 30
Security Issues
US Army Africa has the vision to “be America’s premier Army team dedicated to achieving positive change in Africa.” An Army brigade from Fort Riley, Kan., some 4,000, soldiers, will begin helping to train African militaries. The idea is to help African troops beat back a growing terrorist threat posed by al-Qaida.
Marine Corps Forces Africa — Scheduled for a six-month deployment, the approximately 150 Marines and sailors are tasked with conducting theater security cooperation and limited crisis response missions in support of U.S. Africa Command.
Navy — Africa Partnership Station
APS is an international security cooperation initiative facilitated by Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, aimed at strengthening global maritime partnerships through training and collaborative activities in order to improve maritime safety and security in Africa.
U.S. Air Forces Africa, located at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, is combined with U.S. Air Forces in Europe and is the air component for the Department of Defense unified command – U.S. Africa Command located at Stuttgart, Germany. AFAFRICA conducts sustained security engagement and operations as directed to promote air safety, security and development on the African continent.
The National Guard State Partnership Program matches up foreign countries with the National Guard from certain U.S. states. For example, the Wyoming National Guard is paired with Tunisia.
U.S. Africa Command conducted 14 major joint exercises in 2012. A long-term goal of U.S. Africa Command is to leverage existing bilateral and regional exercises in support of regional and continental security goals shared by the United States, the African Union, African nations and regional organizations.
The large-scale Genocide of Africa has begun: The US importation of thousands of automatic weapons into Africa will ice it. And yet the Obama Administration was able to trick nearly all this country’s Democrats into voting for it. This has been the most effective Propaganda campaign in history.
It is sad and terrifying that, after the horrendous experiences that African Americans had in our nation had with Slavery and Lynch Mobs, 93% of Black Americans voted to install and maintain Slavery and Lynch Mobs in Africa.
Recommended highly. Why don’t we quit beating around the bush and tell the world we want total control and anyone who doesn’t cooperate will be eliminated. So sad. :(
Ah, Obomba’s just being pragmatic as ever, normanb. As he was in Oct. 2010 granting sanctions waivers to nations who ‘recruit’ and us child soldiers (Chad, Sudan, Yemen, and Congo). See, the policies to change the practice were all in place, and would sort things out soon.
Christian Science Monitor quotes him as saying it’s in OUR best interest, and we need those nations to receive our
military assistanceaid at gunpoint, as Wm. Easterly calls it.Too hideous, all of it.
Interesting page at Defense News, donbacon. I think I’ve seen you link to it before, and had forgotten it. At least they’re telling some of the truth, although if the Quantico page is any evidence, training troops really isn’t on the program in fact. Those troop numbers seem low, but it may be due to private mercenary forces aren’t counted.
Hillary’s remarks were predictable.
When my mind goes to the leaked language of the TPP, and the promise that a US military presence is part of the package being offered to signatory nations, and along with the hundreds of ways the trade deal screws the 99%, it’s easy to see how many nations elites can be easily talked into sharing the pie of capitalist profits. Too sad, too ugly.
Thank you for the round-up, donbacon.
Methinks the world has noticed that, mtquinn, and the nations whose leaders agree to the ‘partnerships’ have something to win in terms of their own profit and power.
That Empire seems to have a perpetual Rube Goldberg life of its own by now gives me the shivers. Say a prayer for Africa and all of us.
Liked and concur with your comment @ #7 normanb …
@ wd … thank you wd … recommended
The propaganda has been very well constructed for a long time now. While it was easy to begin a timeline from 9/11/2001 onwards that was not the actual begin point. Events that easily reach back to 1945 that were post WW2 packaged and sold as a narrative of WashingtonDC and Americans being the good guys time after time and certainly only seeking to do good in pursuit of good outcomes was polished propaganda of a high order.
Little has changed over the decades and post Soviet Union implosion it was a short shift for WashingtonDC to proceed to anoint itself as Sole World Super Hyper Power and permit itself to play as it pleased by rules that only WashingtonDC deigned tolerable when tolerable but otherwise simply void or invalid. What was done to Iraq during 19990′s by Clinton WH was one result. By early 2001 Bush/Cheney were installed in the WH and they soon embarked on some genuine China bashing while whatever was being done at CIA surely is still very hidden and concealed as to what led / who led the way to 9/11/2001. Whatever the real story was/is Bush/Cheney were doing it with same America Is Super Hyper Sole World Power and did as Clinton WH had been doing or doubled down on what Clinton WH had carved out during 1990′s. Obama WH has not been shy about continuing this WH trend in large ways since 2009.
By rights the CIA should have been shut down and dismantled and fully reset top to bottom if still deemed needed in very limited ways after John Kennedy was shot dead in November 1963 as so much of that incident was and remains murky as to why,what and who.
With the American War on Vietnam ramped up from 1964 onwards covertly and overtly it is now not difficult to know just how barbaric American conduct was across SE Asia for the following decade. The truths were shrouded and the facts were purposely thwarted or openly lied about.
While it was always so very easy to beat up on G.W.Bush when he was in the WH as so many “good” Ds were more than willing to do once Barack Obama became POTUS and after Jan. 2009 a lot of Ds decided to let B.H.Obama do G.W.Bush GWOT and say stuff while doing something else time after time that decidedly was not often very forthwith or simply not what Obama claimed was happening or being done.
Did POTUS Obama put CIA in a tight box? No. Did POTUS Obama truly draw a hard line on torture and clean out torture advocates? Likely answer? No. The Drone War that B.H.Obama plainly has made a signature Obama WH policy choice and the indiscriminate killing of innocents guilty of nothing other than being and doing what innocent humans are fully entitled to do as innocent humans should have landed B.H.Obama in a jailhouse. Instead of B.H.Obama was given the WH for four more years. That O/D zealots defend Obama and his record as POTUS is pathetic in light of what Ds were doing and did to mock/berate G.W.Bush and R.B.Cheney.
This D zealot conduct is shameless and contemptible.
This AFRICOM evolution and rise is more of the same rot that reaches back to 1990′s — back to 1960′s — back to 1945. Or one could / can compose even longer comments about how it reaches back to 1800 or earlier.
China has stepped into the 21st century in ways that can not be reversed now back to 20th century rule of / by Mao or Qing Dynasty of late 19th century when Imperial China lay prostrate as European and American Empires meddled in China and humiliated Chinese in the shadow of what the Forbidden City once had symbolized about Chinese dominion across East and Central Asia. See Eight Nation War on China.
Chinese have as much right to 21st century as the Europeans and Americans and whatever this AFRICOM stageplay is or is being sold as being it seems a easy surmise it is pointed at sidelining China in Africa. Were the Europeans and Americans doing this in service and to lift up poor and desperately destitute and conflict ravaged common Africans that would be commendable. It is very doubtful this is the motive or comprises the motives and overt/covert goals of AFRICOM.
… @ wd …thank you wd for this FDL diary … this stuff needs to be seen and said. Stay with it… :-)
I had put together a comment earlier for this comments thread and it was close to submit but being I hit wrong button on keyboard it was expunged and lost…. I needed to step away from the computer awhile after that took place. … :-)
Excellent info.
Ashton Carter is a member of the guiding coalition of the Project on National Security Reform, which is sorta the Project for the Preservation of Military Keynesianism. Not quite PNAC II but the effects on the ground are likely to be equally disastrous.
AfricaCenter the source of the Security Issues list looks like a think tank of the old colonial governments in Africa – US, France, Portugal…
Here is the full list of the National Guard State Partnership Program for Africa:
California — Nigeria
Michigan — Liberia
New York — South Africa
North Carolina — Botswana
North Dakota — Ghana
Utah — Morocco
Vermont — Senegal
Wyoming — Tunisia
Those pairings are interesting. Looking at the entire list, they seem to be countries that are the most cooperative with the US and have medium to low risk (although that can change quickly).
Welcome, arrow. I hate when that happens. *If* I suspect that I might be about to make a long comment, I open a word.doc and compose it there, then paste it in. But then, I’m so slow at both typing and thinking comments, I even hate losing the short ones. ;oP
Thanks for your considered comment to normanb. Good historical take, and when it comes to ‘It’s okay when Obomba does it’…or worse ‘necessary’, it’s hard to know what to say.
I’d been struggling to remember who had done a great rebuttal to Military Keyesianism some tome ago, and finally found it: the late Chalmers Johnson and the Center for Economic and Policy Research (Dean Baker ‘guiding’ Global Insight…)
He makes a lot of good points, but in the end, even if it can be proven that, as some economists maintain, that the multipier effect of defense spending is .61, the people need to decide on how their money is spent, and my guess most would clamor for infrastructure projects, clean and sustainable energy sources, free college tuition, Medicare for all…if they knew where their defense dollars were going.
Of course, alternative media would be crucial, since all that’s presented in the MSM is dreck and obfuscation.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment, shootthatarrow. The trends go back to the expansion of settlement into Tennessee and Kentucky. The messianic idea of making a new world goes back to 1620, with a few notes from Thomas Paine thrown in.
The basis in law goes back to the National Security Act of 1947 and the Central Intelligence Act of 1949. The first provided the architecture of the military-industrial complex, essentially extending the wartime partnership of government and industry indefinitely. The second insulated the CIA from real Congressional oversight. A judicial ruling in 1953 (United States v. Reynolds) established formally a state secrets privilege of government. Finally, the structure of the UN as specified by the UN Charter provided a framework for gaining international legitimacy just by convincing the five permanent members and a majority of the Security Council. The evolution of FISA, the PATRIOT Act, and the FISA Amendments Act created the domestic battlefield side of the national security state. For change in policy direction to happen, all of these authorities must be stripped away and a new framework for national security established that does not advantage those who want empire.
Any elected leader who really does want a more modest national security policy runs up against an institution that employs 2-5 million people (government and contractor) and the legal constraints in all of that legislation. Even moderate departures from a imperial policy have been severely punished politically and legally. Any momentary restraint has been immediately post-disaster and has quickly been reversed.
As for Africa, the Somalia intervention by George Herbert Walker Bush probably marks the start of a more directly interventionist policy. Prior to that the CIA was the interventionist agency of choice (such as its role in the murder of Patrice Lumumba).
My argument against Military Keynesianism is pretty simple. Investments in military that are not dual use do not lower the costs of producing and distributing goods and services that people need. Most of them are sunk costs and in the best of circumstances do nothing but sit there; in the worst case they increase costs. The economic incentives are to use them in war lest you have all those sunk costs.
Those that are dual use — employment of people, training, R&D, construction, etc. — can be done directly in the civilian sector and probably at a lower original price.
The argument in the 1940s for perpetuation of the military-industrial complex was that there would not be enough time after an attack or the beginning of war to convert civilian industry to military production like was done in World War II. In my judgment, that argument was both false and self-serving. Industry liked having government as another big customer. The same “there is not enough time” or “imminent threat” argument has now been used to justify torture and the Presidential extrajudicial assassination of “enemy combatants”. I think that argument is also bogus. The US through compartmentalized FBI and CIA had enough time and information to prevent 9-11. For bureaucratic office politics reasons or other reasons, they did not act.
The whole argument for forward deployment into Africa is based on “prevention of attacks on the US” (and other camped-on reasons like drug wars, etc.). It’s just another form of the “there is not enough time” argument. There is not enough time to defend the US purely from within the US–that’s the argument. It’s bullshit. And shows that the reason for forward deployment in Africa is not defense of the US; it is something else. Oh…US interests (unspecified). Gee, what would those be? Maybe we should ask that question of our officials, eh.
To get to the FP Failed States Index, I’d had to register there. Even though I asked not to receive their emails, I got two already today with some ‘news’:
French Special Forces reminds us of the similarity of the oil wells in Libya being well-protected by foreign forces.
Hollande visiting Tombouctou was a reasonable idea, but it seems he’s trying to outdo Commander Codpiece with his optimistic “Mission Accomplished” attitude. I guess this now is a test of the “out” part of “in-and-out” tactics. Sorta like the Spanish Civil War canary for what is coming.
‘Commander Codpiece’, lol!
Reasonable, and good for his image. Between the lines has been the ‘taking note’ in other articles that the land in the north is an enormous desert area where war could become as permanent as Afghanistan.
The major uranium mines in Niger are largely French owned (one third by the government), but oopsie, Niger wants to renegotiate Areva’s contracts.
This site is interesting, and this is a piece about the devastating health hazards of the mines. Again the people suffer for resource extraction. A dearth of water, poisoned ground water…just like our Indigenous and coal states residents.
I like the Spanish Civil War canary metaphor, my friend.
Very relevant to this discussion:
Noam Chomsky: Why It’s “Legal” When the U.S. Does It
Two highlights: The “Yglesias Doctrine” states it without the frills.
The discussion at the end about how public understanding of foreign policy emerges out of America’s civil religion about “purpose”.
Virginia (amazingly) just decided not to open its uranium resources to mining just because of the health hazards. Very much a NIMBY response from Southside Virginia (less than a hundred miles up the road from here).
I’m new here, have been lurking for awhile, moved to register just to say there must be something seriously wrong with the commenter at #3. Hard to imagine how any decent human could say such a thing, knowing what your work that I’ve seen has been about. Easier to conclude it must not be a decent person. Sorry you had to be subjected to such an insensitive and crude comment from a spiritual barbarian. Not a past jilted lover of yours by any chance, was it?
Good-o, THD, NIMBY works for incremental help anyway. Idle blocked some train tracks to a nuclear processing plant in Toronto yesterday. They thought the train carried nuclear material; some folks commenting here and there said not, but it was great!
Please allow me to welcome you to the Lake, notofascism. Great handle, and my sentiments exactly. If you’ve by chance been reading my posts, you might know that the commenter was being needlessly cruel and perhaps even implying hypocrisy on my part, or else he thinks some policy makers read my posts, lol.
‘Jilted lover’ is hilarious, though. Allow me to say, “You might ask that; I couldn’t possibly comment”, lol!
Glad to have lurkers come out of the closet; hope you’ll be more active. We’ve had a few others lately, mainly on the Mothership, iirc.
Thank you for your warm welcome. I just guessed that POS might be a jilted lover because, well, you know, “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and all. That person’s probably been scorned by someone else, then, maybe a lot of somebody elses, maybe even a something else? It’s got to take some kind of horrible personal past to make a person submit such a small-hearted comment. I hope there’s not a lot of that kind of low-down stalking/bullying going on around here, it really does not seem to fit in on a site of this obvious quality. Again, my sympathies to you for having to experience crap like that just to get your valuable voice heard. Oh, and I just noticed I can recommend the good posts here, so i just recommended yours. Thank you for it, and don’t let the maggots get you down. I look forward to reading your future works, and thank you for this one, which I found to be very informative and valuable.
Thanks, THD. I’ll read, but it’s odd. I answered this earlier, even spoke about baking today ahead of Terror Tuesday, etc. Poltergeists must have stolen it…or…Al Qaeda.
Well, it’s a he, but around here gender doesn’t matter much, as you’ve probably noticed. It’s lucky for me, cuz I get it wrong a lot. I’d reckoned dear nonquixote was a woman, and he explained why I may have thought so…in very kind terms.
Stalking/bullying: yes, here and there, and we’d figured that tensions might diminish post-election. Wish I understood it better, but as Radar O’Reiley once said to Col. Potter: ‘Oh, no Colonel; I don’t even try to understand it. It just slows down the work.’ Come to think of it, we could use Sidney Friedman around here now and again.
And thanks for the rec, notofascism. Kind of you, and for the other too. ‘Africom’s on the March’ Pepe Escboar predicted long ago, and crossedcrocodile’s been watching closely as well. Found some new sites hunting for info for this one, so even though it’s not popular, I’m really glad I spent the time and eyesight on it. ;o)
I’ve never understood cruelty for it’s own sake. I’m very sorry you experienced it here, Wendy.
I read and I recommend, wendydavis. You are getting and responding to some excellent comments as usual, so I’ve learned by now to keep coming back. As someone has said on a different thread, we all are subject to ptsd these days and the dog we have in this fight to end needless suffering through unending war is the enormous toll this is taking on our own citizenry.
Every aspect of ‘normal’ life is now tainted by this failed and failing policy.
My stars, OmAli, it’s good to see you. ;o) Thank you for your concern. Now and again it happens, but lately this person has left me alone for the most part. As our new amigo (or amiga, maybe) said above, that sort of angry jibe usually indicates some heavy wounding that hasn’t healed, so I try not to take it too very personally. That was personal, and I’m guessing you’d also read my post that let you understand why.
And in the words of the amazing philosopher Kurt Vonnegut, ‘And so it goes…’
love to you,
wd
There are various arguments against a half-million person expeditionary ground force, including economic (Keynesian) and moral reasons, and one of them is constitutional. While the constitution envisioned a standing navy, to safeguard international commerce, it did not provide for a standing army.
Article I, Section 8, Powers of Congress
#To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
#To provide and maintain a Navy;
Good to see you, too. Yes, I know the post, and that comment made my face sting like I had been slapped.
I noticed the link to The Real News up above. Paul Jay is a treasure.
Take care, wd,
Ohmmmm
Just for my own amusement, I’ve been copying Hollande’s remarks on the Mali mission.
France objectives announced by Hollande & Co. (chronological) (Hollande quotes unless indicated otherwise.)
Jan 15
– France will end its Mali mission only when stability has returned to the country.
–drive Islamist extremists from the country and establish democracy.
Jan 18
–. . .one goal [sic]. To ensure that when we leave, when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory.
Jan 21
–France’s defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian . . . goal had now become the “total reconquest” of the conflict-plagued country. “We’re not going to leave any pockets [of resistance].
Jan 29
– Now, the Africans can take over.
– French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian: France had two objectives, first to halt a militant advance toward the south and to seize control of population centers in the north and he declared that they have achieved both of them. “The mission has been fulfilled,”
Jan 30
–French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius: “Now it’s up to African countries to take over. We decided to put the means — in men and supplies — to make the mission succeed and hit hard. But the French aspect was never expected to be maintained. We will leave quickly.”
Feb 2
–vowed to restore cultural sites damaged by the rebels.
–help Mali re-establish control in the north.
–France would hand over to African troops “once the sovereignty of Mali is restored”.
–French troops would stay in Mali “as long as necessary”
–France will stay with you as long as it takes, until the time for Africans themselves to replace us. Until then we will be beside you to the end, as far as north Mali.
–Now, it’s the Malians who have the responsibility to assure the transition and above all the stability of their country.
–The changeover is soon enough. Now, it’s the Malians who have the responsibility to assure the transition and above all the stability of their country.
Once again, so many brought so much to the thread, didn’t they? And we do have a dog in this fight, and once in awhile I think of DW’s contention that those whose lives we harm irrevocably over yonder might just come for us one day, and how important it is that we stop this stuff ourselves.
I can’t say it was a very well-constructed post, but I had too much information, opinion, (and not a little ignorance to offset) to know how to segue the bits together. The last few paragraphs were a bit incoherent, but by then….I couldn’t manage to fix them. Hoped people might know what an emotional subject it was, and forgive me. (Looks like y’all have.) ;o)
Thanks a lot for left-paging it, mods,
LOL! ‘Stay tuned for more moving targets about the vascillating objectives we intend to reach before we leave.’ (‘Total reconquest’ and ‘no more terr’ists’ might be the Big Clues, eh?)
I saw Bush’s Poodle honking in support of the French (and some British troops or help) on somewhere today (mebbe the Guardian) that it will take a full generation ‘to defeat terrorism’, and seriously he called it ‘the new cold war’. Signed, sealed, and delivered…and sealed with a kiss to M. Hollande…
Rec’d. Thanks wendydavis.
I think we need to protect the U.S. homeland, American citizens here and abroad, and our national interests from the Orwellian threats emanating from our own “government”.
Obama still hasn’t returned any of my calls about this, he must be busy getting photographed with his gun.
Your empathy does you credit, OmAli; we need to encourage more of it somehow as times get tougher for more of us. Some days it feels like a tall order.
Paul Jay did a great interview, and Maurice Carney was prescient as hell. I was tickled to find it.
Best Oohmmms to you, too.
p.s. A diarist can always delete a comment, or flag one, but I favor letting the comments stand.
Unfortunately, Congress seems to think that doing an annual defense appropriations bill allows it to keep a standing army in perpetuity. It would be interesting (if probably in the end futile with the current court) to argue the constitutionality of the foundational legislation that the Truman administration used to send us down this road. And for Presidents to discover their constitutional qualms at some point before their farewell addresses.
It’s always the “getting out part” that these “helpers” see as problematic.
LOL! Welcome, Isaiah. I found Mr. wd this t-shirt: Homeland Security: fighting Terrorism Since 1492.
When he wears it to Cortez, the Utes and Navajos love it to bits, of course, and howl with glee.
That photo was a kill, wasn’t it? Someone pointed out that ya shoot skeet up in the air, not like Cheney baggin’ old Harry Whittington. ;o)
Thanks for the chortles and guffaws, dear. Can’t stop, andit’s hard to type.
US train and equip has a long and ugly history in Africa, as in Latin America. However, Pentagon apologist Wendy Sherman alleges that train and equip is the cure to events such as the coup in Mali, not the cause.
Here’s an excellent analysis by Crossed Crocodiles[sic], along with taking Wendy Sherman to the woodshed.
With all of the research you include in your posts, I often find myself with little to say on first reading – it seems it is all there. But always, returning if I can, there are connections that even a muddlehead like me can find.
Another one is to dust off my copy of “African Queen” – it just seems that unlikely, remarkable pair coping with leeches and rapids and romance to boot might help revive the American ideal for me, the way I remember it.
Ah! The White Man is again protecting the Africans from their own self-determination again (although the local rules are puppets, not a Colonial Office).
Must be that bloody scholarship fund Rhodes set up. Teaches people all the wrong things, raiding the dutch for Gold, invading and setting up a private estate the size of a country or two (N & S Rhodesia), for their mineral resources.
What next? US officials complaining about “The White Man’s Burden”?
CrossedCrocodiles is an awesome site, and s/he’s quite an analyst. How often do we hear that story, and those fears of trained and equipped armies the US/NATO leaves behind? Cripes, it made me go hunting for similar stories from Congo, and the hell Rwanda and Uganda made for them, all the while collecting kudos from Bush I and Clinton, Rick Warren, et.al.
Pretty hard to see how any of this gets unwound given the immense profits corrupt MICC and contractors can amass and share with corrupt leaders…anywhere.
You’d howl at the amount of stuff I didn’t use, and will likely forget in the next twenty-four hours as happens increasingly in my dotage, lol.
Thank you for the African Queen imagery, juliania. It was a love story beyond compare. Tangentially speaking, I saw fredcdobbs say he was leaving here because of friction with mods. Hope he didn’t, or that he returns; his comments tickled me often.
As do yours, and your historical and literary references. A few I’ve even saved in my blogging-help word.doc I keep handy (dotage being what it is and all). ;oP
Excellent snark, Synoia my friend. ‘White Man’s Burden’ earns you a reward of some sort…mebbe a Medal of Freedom? (THD had a goodie upthread, but…I’ve forgotten it already, of course).
And good grief I’d forgotten Rhodes and his scholarships; I even know a few folks who’d gotten them, and used em well.
You’ll never know how many different titles I tried (even lost the original doc in my files on accountta it; bugger all). Yours would have been better, and was precisely what Maurice Carney of Friends of Congo said so softly and profoundly.
I read this week that Germany, the US, et.al. will 7 million euros of aid to Rwanda…they’ve been so good. ‘But we’ll be watching ya!’ was the message that came with it. Which complements the ‘Rwanda genocide: ICTR overturns ministers’ convictions’ story I pasted in up yonder.
Bet that’ll all work out well.
Yes, the Yglesias principle was pretty pat. This was well-constructed, too, and while it was clear, Chomsky’s enunciation was instructive as hell:
And for those who haven’t the time to scout the last paragraph on Hans Morgenthau’s ‘religion’ metaphor:
Speaking of skin color, apparently now we can look forward to AFISMA black Africans from various countries, mostly from Chad and sponsored by ECOWAS, except Chad which isn’t ECOWAS, allied with black Malians against lighter-skinned secular Malian Tuareg MNLA who have separated from the Islamic Taureg Ansar Dine which has in turn been split in two, all of them pitted against Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) which has its roots in largely Arabic-speaking Algeria. This is pending decisions on the UN African-led force which France and US are promoting, meanwhile AFRICOM is surely doing its covert operations.
I hope that’s correct.
At his confirmation hearing, Secretary Kerry said
Got that, world? It’s what we do, whether you like it or not. We’re not doing you any favors, it’s all about US.
I don’t think I’d even seen ECOWAS before all this; some of the descriptions of the meetings have been almost to much to believe.
But Kerry said all that? I keep thinking I’m virtually unshockable, then keep finding it just ain’t so. The (verbal) pretense of helping other nations is gone, and the naked self-serving arrogance is simply astounding, and mirrors exactly the voice over (rush transcript) of the ‘seabasing’ video from Quantico: ‘too bad, ‘host nation’ suckers; we’re here to help ourselves whether you like it or not!’
Simply Staggering, donbacon.
p.s. I’ve probably asked before, but didn’t you used to blog at the Cafe? So many good discussions there, and moderation free.
Oh shit, oh dear: did the hall give him a standing ovation or what?
Having been taken a bit aback here, I failed to note that you may be another lurker coming out to speak. Sorry that I missed saying welcome, and also that: ‘I’m sure that you meant this in the most positive and helpful way, lol.’
Hope you enjoy the Lake, Unida Bisquit.
Theologically correct, as it were. It’s a hiring interview. Give the guy props for not framing it altruistically. His anti-Vietnam position was precisely framed in this purpose: the Vietnam War was undercutting American global influence; therefore, it was a huge mistake and should be ended. Our best hope is that he does the right things, even if for the wrong reasons.
At its founding Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had numerous short-term objectives including elimination of customs duties, abolishment of trade restrictions, establishment of a common customs tariff, and coordination of economic, industrial, and monetary policies.
ECOWAS has been plagued by divisions based on history. Some members are former French colonies while others are former British colonies. The resulting differences in culture, heritage, demographics, and fiscal orientation has had a destabilizing influence on ECOWAS.
In August 1990 ECOWAS, responding to civil war in Liberia, established the ECOWAS Monitoring Group and an 8,000 soldier peacekeeping force whose purpose was to restore order, organize an interim government, and supervise national elections. Only five ECOWAS nations backed this peacekeeping force. Other ECOWAS nations remained neutral or vigorously protested against what they regarded as ECOWAS’s involvement in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.
In this exercise Chad, non-ECOWAS, is apparently seeking to dominate the situation, but Nigeria, the non-French economic big dog in ECOWAS, may have a different agenda.
Unfortunately, John-boy, they’re not jobs for Americans and you know it. The American Chambers of Commerce active in many countries work hand-in-glove with the commerce desks at US embassies to help US corporations out-source US jobs.
The US State Department, owned by US business, is a key player in US corporate overseas investment and job outsourcing. US taxpayers, through USAID, is even providing funding to the American Chambers to aid in this effort to train foreign workers to take US jobs.
Yes, I did blog at TPMCafe. Those were good times.
Apparently Clinton’s excuse for why she didn’t accomplish anything are two:
1. Bush left a mess (sound familiar?)
2. The White House ruled
We can dismiss #1 — Obama wore it out. On #2 there’s some truth. The US president, using seemingly unlimited “executive privilege” has become an autocratic position using the National Security apparatus to be the full-time commander-in-chief of us all, including the Secretary of State.
Ideologies are facades. The ideology of foreign policy, however, guides it:
Morgenthou another madman.
Atheists know that, like religion, this utopia is a fraud, and the real objective is, as the hypocritical madman says, exploitation.
Your #55 will take reading again, and maybe again, but thank you.
No, not jobs for us, but it was a ‘JOBS’ mention, as per: “Pluck yer magic twanger, froggie’ (yes, it dates me) allusion (well, ‘illusion’ really). Hit the Good Words, people will applaud in their hearts, if not in fact.
As to your #54: Yes, others have mentioned that she couldn’t run her own fiefdom, but I think she’s a True Believer, given her history with the Christian/ist big group of Devotees to Their Own Ordained Power (can’t recall its name), *and* from her several speeches at AIPAC. Her eyes said it all to me, along with the verve in her voice.
And yes; the Cafe was sublime, and a spoiler. Great heat, great light, great battles…and a few idiots. ;o)
Thank you for bringing more quotes, but…wasn’t that the larger point? That as a ‘moral man’, Morgenthau saw through his own rose prism and was disappointed that the US hadn’t lived up to what he believed it to be incipiently?
That ideologies as facades lines I’m not getting, either because I’m worn out and need a hot soak desperately, or it’s just beyond my head level.
But his last quote you gave…does sound true, as long as you’d delete the ‘poetic’. That’s rubbish, imo.
And your final revelation…I’ll need to contemplate, Unida Bisquit. It gets me pinging (deleted the rest as dreck for now; I’ll try to come back to explain what images all that brought).
Okay. There isn’t one ‘atheist’, but possibly ones who are proponents with certain doctrines…okay. But I’d have said that atheists can be spiritual beings, but our Obey says that’s crap, and believing that our intentionally directed awareness and mind-soul-prayer can affect anything at all…means I/we are assigning agency to the object/event/whatever, and thus is theistic. Don’t think so, but: I can see why, and that it’s true, that political utopia is impossible, but given that each person tends to imagine/create a slightly different reality based on dna, neurological switches and pings…edging toward the best imagined common reality seems kinda healthy, and can spread abroad and aloft, and affect all of us.
So. I’m going to try to see what is, and also what’s possible, if unlikely. ;o)
What to say sometimes seems to come about on a very self revealed basis with some comments.
I reached about 700 comments on Glenn Greenwald comment threads at the old GG Salon site before deciding to stop putting up comments there. Incredibly 700 tho not a small number was in number count of comments dwarfed by others who had exceeded 5,000 comments and those who were above 10,000 comments.
What to say was being said many times by many people to be sure.
My GG comments were a mix of short with longer and long comments mixed in — similar to my shootthatarrow’s FDL comments record. I had commented at GG’s Unclaimed Territory as well but have not done so at GG’s GuardianUK site.
I am sure so much ( all ) of what is being said in comments week after week by more than a few here at FDL is well sourced and compiled from a wide swath of references, books, videos and multi faceted discussion(s) and experience(s). Pulled and put together based on copious amounts of synthesis, short/medium/long observations and held / moving opinion(s) and views.
I would hope and so often wish there were amongst the 535 Americans who have seats on Capitol Hill in WashingtonDC or the one American who sits in the WH a viewable portion of political thought and sought acts that I could concur with and let them do what they can or could then about same. Seldom feel this is the case or have felt this to be the case since 1973. As I get close to being 60 years old I understand more and more that much of what is unreeling across the United States and this planet we call Earth must be measured in decades and centuries.
It is plain to see that so much of what is going on these days is tethered to choices and decisions made by comparatively few humans long ago or not so long ago. I have no illusions about what roles avarice for wealth, lust for power and wicked brews of ignorance/arrogance played in so much of what we can see and can know in early 21st century about / from the history of United States.
My ancestors left Northern Europe due to the choices being knowably bleak if they did not leave. As it is here in year 2013 I cannot leave the planet Earth and travel to a new planet which would be 21st century option of what my ancestors had in 19th century.
Seems likely then many of us will pass into time and history and be counted and forgotten amongst so many others who did the same. I may reach age 70 or may not — who knows? — I do know so very many did not reach 20 during WW1 and WW2 on all sides of just those two conflicts so should and do consider myself to be lucky in this.
When I see / read about innocent adult and children being killed by the American who sits in the WH for no reason(s) other than that this American allowed and condoned ( allows and condones still yet ) such wretched conduct I view it as being a deep transgression of decency and humanity based on mercy and compassion. It is numbing to see how such conduct has been taken into mainstream American politics and veneered as being acceptable conduct post 1993, 2001 and 2009.
I understand the history of USA is largely one based on taking,subjugation and killing. I am not naive. Some days tho it seems being naive would or might make this life’s passage more easy to make.
… indeed wd …” And so it goes ”
… do take care wd…the path ahead may lead to where we cannot see but each step does take us one step nearer to Path End… walk on we must and will … :-)
An ideological facade is a put-on to hide the real agenda, the real methodology of the power-hungry.
Chomsky’s “moral man” is a liar and hypocrite. Furthermore, the quotes don’t talk about American transcendence they talk about the abstract necessities of foreign policy political scientists. According to Morgenthou, some grand design has to be constructed by a hegemon, not necessarily American Transcendence. He was not so much a believer in American Transcendence as he was in the methods of realpolitik.
One Atheist? Where do you get that from? Are you referring to humanity’s atheist-being?
Ho ho. I’ll leave that discussion for later.
If you take “spirituality” to be the universal telekinesis, then I’d have to agree with Obi-wan … until that entity was reliably accessed.
Unity needn’t exclude uniqueness … that’s the bourgeois fraud. Marx referred to what he saw as a human universal – species being – amidst human diversity, in my opinion, not so much as fact as denial of the bourgeois fraud that without class humankind would be devoid of progress.
Simplest place is where i got it: ‘Atheists know that…tra la la.’ ;D
The rest? Oy and veh. I might need to get smarter to parse all that, Unida Bisquick.
G’night; sorry I’m not a worthy opponent, but…so it goes.
Okay; this I can understand! Thank you (Daltry’s pretty spry for my age, lol).
“Atheists say” means they are one? You have a little deprogramming to do, my friend.
Your comment is too full to answer, mon ami, the images are zipping through me and leading me to places I don’t have words for. Mmm, I’m 62 I think, and the future is only a place I glance at from time to time…when some practicality forces me to. Considering the End Path without even imagining…or caring, somehow (might be cuz I’m feelin’ rode hard n put up wet, dunno. ;o)
But I’ll take care when I can, and even try to feel some of the luck you feel at reaching our ages. And it’s hideous to feel the import of what we know…and care.
best always, and sleep well,
wd
Good night and good dreams, dear wd.
LOL! No doubt about it, Unida Bisquit. And Olde Canines, New Tricks, all that. And I should have said ‘worthy student’ or something, not ‘opponent’; I would like to understand your credo, message, however you might refer to it. But we don’t share a common vernacular, so it’s a rough project for me.
And I’d meant more: there are all kinds of atheists, including many like Hitchens, for whom it’s a religion in itself, or apatheists like myself, who don’t even care enough to decide.