Chamblee54

This content was published October 22, 2009. … The New American Foundation has a report on the drone attacks in Pakistan. These attacks have increased dramatically under BHO, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. … Drones are unmanned aircraft operated by remote control. There is no human at risk (to us) in these operations. These reports do not mention how many drones have been shot down. These attacks are going on in Pakistan (which theoretically is not at war with the United States), and in secret operations around the world.
Drone attacks are like abortions. In a typical procedure, the doctor and mother are at little risk, and the baby dies. Abortion is safer than childbirth, just like drones are safer than aircraft with human crews. Safer, that is, for the human crew. Drones are just as deadly for the women and children on the ground as manned aircraft. … Speculation about civilian casualties continues. Estimates range from 6% to 85% of the deaths are civilians. This is going to be impossible to verify, with militants exaggerating and Americans denying. The lowest estimates are from The Long War Journal.
It should be noted that if these operations were happening in America, and white citizens were being killed, a 6% rate of civilian death would be an outrage. However, when you are talking about dark skinned Muslims eight time zones away, a human life is worth less, compared to the military advantage gained. … One thing from the NAF report caught the eye here. “As a result of the unprecedented 41 drone strikes into Pakistan …about a half-dozen leaders of militant organizations have been killed–including two heads of Uzbek terrorist groups allied with al Qaeda.” What are Uzbek terrorist groups doing in Pakistan? Are we making attacks in Uzbekistan now?
Another eye popper is in the appendix. This is from a list of drone attacks. … Location: Makeen, South Waziristan (funeral of militants killed in earlier strike), Al Qaeda/Taliban leaders killed: Unknown, Al Qaeda/Taliban killed: At least 45, Others killed: 45-83 (including militants). … We are attacking funerals. This is what gets POTUS the Nobel Peace Prize. … In addition to the moral disaster of killing women and children with unmanned aircraft, there are some strategic issues. The fighters have been staying in the mountainous frontier of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is the area being attacked.
There are indications that the fighters are moving into more populated areas of Pakistan. They will be more difficult to fight there, and can radicalize the population. … When you drop a bomb on an outpost, you destroy cell phones, computers, and paperwork. These items can be of value for determining the future plans of the fighters. Also, dead men tell no tales. Remember the ticking time bomb in the torture debates? What if someone knows where that ticking bomb is, but we kill him? He is not going to be able to tell us where that bomb is, torture or no torture.
If the goal of the war in Stan Land is to destroy the terrorists, then we should question whether killing leaders is going to do the trick. The anger that fuels these terrorists is not going to go away, and the leaders that are killed are going to be replaced. These attacks may slow down the resistance, but they will not destroy it. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Marion Post Wolcott took the social media picture in September 1938. “Some of coal miner’s family on front porch. “The Patch,” Cassville, West Virginia” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

This content was published October 4, 2014. … There is a Radiolab episode called The Fact of the Matter. It is about a man who likes to separate fact from fiction. “The pursuit of truth properly considered shouldn’t stop short of insanity.” After an hour or so plumbing the digital depths, I began to appreciate the truth of that comment. Does anyone have a recipe that uses a can of worms?
The show is about a photograph from the Crimean War. “The valley of the shadow of death” was taken by Roger Fenton. on April 23, 1855. TVOTSOD was taken near a place called Balaclava. (Балаклавский) Today, this is in Ukraine. (Update below) Balaclava was the site of a nasty battle in the Crimean War. Today, a Balaclava is a colorful ski mask. It is the fashion statement of Pussy Riot.
I cannot understand why this picture is a big deal. The Library of Congress has a collection of the Fenton Crimean War Photographs. The Fenton pictures were one of the first collections in the LOC that I worked with. The picture of a road, with cannonballs, did not catch my eye.
The podcast is a detective story. It seems that there are two versions of the photograph. One has the cannonballs in the road, the other doesn’t. Were the cannonballs tossed on the road to make the picture more dramatic, or were they removed? They could have been removed to clear the road for wagon traffic, or to recycle the balls. In 1855, people picked up used cannonballs.
A very good question is why anyone would care? A man named Erroll Morris cares. The link is to a very long article at the New York Times about the picture. Mr. Morris went to Ukraine to investigate the pictures. It is possible that his pursuit of truth did not stop at the boundary of insanity.
The podcast mentions this famous picture, with a second shot that casts doubts. I went to the LOC, and found the famous picture right away. The second shot proved elusive. I viewed all 263 pictures in the Fenton collection in a slide show, and could not find the second picture. I began to think that maybe the second picture was the fake. The New York Times article by Erroll Morris has a copy of the second picture. The possibility remains that the second picture is a fabrication.
The podcast says that the location of some rocks changes in the two pictures. In the picture without the cannonballs on the road, the rocks are higher up on a hill, than they are in the famous picture. To Mr. Morris, this is evidence that the famous picture is a fake. I have examined the two images. Perhaps this search for truth will be called off before the onset of dementia.
The show has an amusing exchange between producer Jad Abumrad (جاد نيكولاس أبومراد) and Errol Morris. JAD: Hi. Is this Errol Morris? EM: I think it’s me. JAD: Hello, this is Jad from—from Radiolab. EM: Hi. Thank you for your very, very nice but somewhat disturbing email. JAD: What disturbed you in the email? EM: The term “truth fascist.”
Controversies about famous images are not new. Many people think the flag raising on Iwo Jima was posed. Just today on facebook, there was a link to a feature, The Kissing Sailor, or “The Selective Blindness of Rape Culture”. The idea is that the nurse did not want the sailor to kiss her on VJ day.
This feature was originally published in 2012, with LOC photographs of the Crimean War. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, including Balaklava. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in February 1942. “Meeker County, Minnesota. Farmers’ dance in crossroads store” ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

This content was published September 1, 2009. … Paul Wolfowitz has been a government player for years. After finishing his education, he got a job in the Nixon Administration, and worked with Ford and Reagan. He became a star under GHWB and GWB. Under George W. Bush, Mr. Wolfowitz (who never served in the military) was Deputy Secretary of Defense. After 911, he became a forceful advocate of War in Iraq. Mr. Wolfowitz is regarded by some as the “Architect of the War in Iraq”.
On February 27, 2003, Mr. Wolfowitz testified before congress. “There has been a good deal of comment—some of it quite outlandish—about what our postwar requirements might be in Iraq. Some of the higher end predictions we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark. It is hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take … to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army.”
The conquest was the easy part. The occupation, the act of putting humpty dumpty back together … this has been the tough part. More than a few people saw this in 2003. … Mr. Wolfowitz gave an interview to Vanity Fair magazine May 9, 2009. The interview had a quote about WMD. “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.”
The possession of WMD by “next Hitler” Saddam Hussein was one of the leading reasons for the invasion. Iraq was known to have used poison gas against the Kurds (while they were allies of the United States). The WMD were never found. … In 1941, The United States was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor. A declaration of war was issued within a week. There was no settling on an issue for bureaucratic reasons. … I found a transcript of the complete interview. HT to TomDispatch. … Gaza’s Looming Cancer Epidemic is the latest post at TomDispatch. It was published September 4, 2025.
Apparently, Mr. Wolfowitz likes to talk. One interesting segment concerns the Cruise missile, and other “smart” weapons. It seems as though the research on these weapons was almost suspended. The United States was negotiating arms control with The Soviet Union. The Cruise missile was almost abandoned as a concession to the Soviets. The Navy supported this, as they felt that the torpedoes on submarines were taking up too much room already. … This is a repost. Here is part one.
This content was published September 4, 2009. … There is a controversy about a picture from Afghanistan. A soldier is being treated, after being hit by a grenade. Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard later died. … Few graphic images from the “War on Terror” have been seen on this side of the Atlantic. The burden of the war is on the volunteer soldiers, and the families who support them. Many people in America have no contact with anyone fighting eight time zones away.
Even less is said about why we fight. The revenge for 911 has long ago been taken. Any fantasies about establishing a democracy in Afghanistan are foolish. The war has spilled into Pakistan with even less debate or public concern than was focused on Afghanistan or Iraq. Nuclear armed Pakistan is an unstable country, with a nervous border with India. The United States is killing women and children in Pakistan from unmanned airplanes. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the social media picture in November 1938. Men in front of pool hall, Omaha, Nebraska ©Luther Mckinnon 2025 · selah

Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night,
incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world:
…For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near;
I bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
Reconciliation was written by Walt Whitman. During the War Between the States, Mr. Whitman served as a volunteer nurse in Washington DC hospitals. That hospital was full of the human cost of war. Mr. Whitman looked past the so-called causes … slavery, states rights, banker profits … and saw the price paid, by the men who fought.
“In 1862, Whitman received word that his brother George had been wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg. During the worst, he traveled down to the Virginia battle site. Much to Whitman’s relief, he found that his brother had sustained only minor injuries. While he was there, Whitman was moved by an especially brutal scene. … He records a dramatic moment where he’s standing in front of this field hospital and sees at the foot of two trees a pile of amputated limbs. He says, “A full load for a one horse cart.” And these are limbs that had been thrown out the windows of the surgery in the haste of the battle and the emergencies.”
Walt Whitman emerges as a type of Jesus figure. His words are analyzed 150 years later, looking to find a meaning that pleases 2023 America. At least Mr. Whitman left a written record, in English. This does not prevent him from being misrepresented.
“Song of Ourselves? Walt Whitman and the American Imagination” talks about Mr. Whitman living in Brooklyn before the War, and how he came to be involved in that conflict. At some point, the hosts talk about … a framed quote, “Be curious, not judgmental.” I was curious about the context, and did a little digging. There are plenty of meme-mongers selling this quote. This does not answer the question … how did Walt Whitman come to say this?
Wikiquotes lists BCNJ as Disputed. “While consistently attributed to Whitman, this popular motivational quote has no source. It is occasionally listed as occurring in Leaves of Grass, but the closest phrase found in that collection is “Be not curious about God.”
And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.” … Song of Myself, Part 48.
This is a repost from 2019. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture: “Corporal John A. Hartshorn of Company A, 19th Maine Infantry … Photograph shows identified soldier John A. Hartshorn, who volunteered to enlist in the army as a substitute for John W. Crane in August 1863. Hartshorn died on May 23, 1864 of wounds received at Cold Harbor, Virginia. Harshorn wears a sack coat and forage cap and holds a musket wit fixed bayonet missing its ramrod.”