Quotulatiousness

June 8, 2014

CANSOFCOM develops habit of secrecy, even for events in the news

Filed under: Cancon, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:56

David Pugliese says CANSOFCOM remains unwilling (or unable) to discuss things that even our allies talk about publicly:

I’m not sure what’s happening at the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) these days. The command used to be open to the extent it could, particularly on non-classified issues like international exercises. In the old days that would have openly talked about Exercise Eager Lion, the annual exercise in Jordan. This year’s exercise includes countries from five different continents and more than 12,500 participants. The exercise provides multilateral forces with the opportunity to promote cooperation and interoperability among participation forces, build functional capacity, practice crisis management, and enhance readiness, according to Jordan’s military.

I asked CANSOFCOM about the training going on in Jordan (it had been reported by CTV) and was told the command couldn’t talk about it.

But thankfully the U.S. military understands what true OPSEC is about as well as the value of publicity. The article below is from the U.S. military public affairs (by Sgt. Melissa Parrish, with her photos as well).

Regulating cosmetics

Filed under: Business, Government, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:43

Jeffrey Tucker discusses the coming crash in the world of make-up:

The organization Campaign for Safe Cosmetics doesn’t just want you to be able to have new choices about the makeup or other products you buy. It wants the FDA to be able to ban and recall products. It will decide for you what is and isn’t safe.

And it is prevailing against the industry itself, which has no interest whatsoever in selling unsafe products, but precisely the opposite. The industry is already ridiculously overregulated.

What’s the excuse? The usual nonsense about safety and security and health, along with predictable headlines about how your shampoo is giving you cancer. There is a crowd of lobbyists backed by regulators who seem to believe that all of modernity is corrupting and horrible and must be reversed until we are living in the most-primitive state of being, sans makeup, of course.

In other words, cosmetics are going the way of everything else. The quality of the product will be depleted by regulations, just as with indoor plumbing, electricity, cars, light bulbs, soaps and gas-powered tools. Entrepreneurship will be hindered and truncated. Innovation will stop. In a few years, you will wonder: Whatever happened to makeup and deodorant and hair spray that actually works? Prepare: The end is near!

Already, I’ve heard many women complain that cosmetics today are far worse than they were 10 years ago. The colors don’t behave they way they should, and color is mainly what the FDA currently controls. I don’t doubt that whatever problems exist are due to government regulations. Whenever you see consumer products that decline in quality to the point that you have to pay vastly more for something of good quality, or that high quality suddenly becomes completely unavailable, you will find the hand of government if you look hard enough.

Modern weapons would make a D-Day style landing almost impossible

Filed under: Military, Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:34

At The Diplomat, Zachary Keck looks at how the evolution of military technology would make future D-Day style invasions much more difficult:

Seaborne invasions are one of, if not the most, difficult kind of military operation. That is partially why, as Mearsheimer points out, the great stopping power of water is so consequential in international politics. At first glance, it might seem like the innovations in transportation and communication technology that have triggered globalization would make contemporary amphibious assaults easier

Not so, however. To begin with, many of the basic challenges that have always plagued seaborne invasions are rooted in geography, which remains relatively fixed. Namely, the defending force in amphibious invasions are usually heavily fortified while the landing force typically has to initially fight in the open. The landing force also remains extremely vulnerable before actually reaching land, especially since the defending force can rely on land-based defense systems.

In fact, as Stratfor, a private global intelligence firm, points out, modern defense technologies have made amphibious assaults much more difficult. The most “significant development” since World War II, Stratfor points out, is precision-guided munitions (these did exist in rudimentary form during the conflict). The analysis goes to explain:

“A contemporary landing force would approach the beachhead in an amphibious landing vehicle such as the U.S. Assault Amphibious Vehicle, which moves at around 13 kph (8 mph). This would be vulnerable to anti-tank guided missiles fired from positions onshore. On D-Day, ships in the Allied invasion fleet were also able to come relatively close to shore to deploy landing craft. The deadly threat of anti-ship cruise missiles in modern warfare would force a modern fleet to remain farther out to sea, leaving amphibious vehicles even more exposed.”

This last point is especially important. As Sydney Freedberg noted back in April, “The new [Marine] Corps concept, Expeditionary Force 21, predicts long-range threats will force the fleet to stay at least 65 nautical miles offshore, a dozen times the distance that existing Marine amphibious vehicles are designed to swim.”

Smaller invasions against undefended coastline — think of both the initial Argentinian attack on the Falkland Islands and the British counter-attack as examples — are still possible, especially in bolt-from-the-blue surprise fashion, but an attack against an active defence with modern weapons might well be unacceptably hard for even the US Marine Corps.

QotD: Understanding the Koran

Filed under: History, Middle East, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

The Koran is pretty contradictory. That’s because it was written by Muhammad at different stages in his career as a would-be world conqueror. In the initial stages of his inventing Islam, he presented it as a moral system and a warning. The first chapters of the Koran read a lot like parts of the Bible, especially Jesus’ sermons: repent for judgment is at hand. It condemns immoral behavior and calls for repentence. Then, as Muhammad gained followers and began his series of military campaigns to conquer all surrounding areas in the name of his new religion, the themes shifted.

Now it was all about defeating and subjugating the wicked. About how Muslim warriors are the hand of Allah on earth and fighting against the evil unbeliever who will be punished. Here instead of a call for personal repentance there are calls for conquest and destruction, slaughtering the wicked and cutting the heads off of those who will not submit or convert.

Then, having beaten almost everyone and in power, the tone shifts again. The last parts of the Koran are about how to govern, how to live, what to do in minute detail down to what hand to eat with, and information on how to live with the wicked Jew and Christian who are so close to Islam. The calls for death and conquest are subdued and fade away in this last bit, but complaints about women and how to keep them under control are pretty much the exclusive content of the last few chapters.

Now, Muslims say that there is a principle where older parts of the Koran are understood or replaced by the newer; so if there’s a conflict between part A and part C, the part C bits are the ones you follow.

But then it gets complicated. Because the Hadith is a collection of stories allegedly about Muhammad from his life, collected anecdotes, quotes, information, and tales of his life that are then used to interpret the Koran and create Islamic law with. And these can wildly differ, conflict with, and even completely contradict each other.

To make matters worse, for a thousand years or so, different Sharia Courts and Imams have been making official proclamations about Islam that are not just suggestions but absolute total voice-of-Allah law of Islam and the countries that it controls.

And these, too, can be totally at odds. So its a horrible contradictory mess of conflicting absolutes all claiming to be the total voice of Allah. And, as Muhammad himself allegedly said, Allah changes his mind sometimes, that’s why the conflicts in his writings.

The end result is that Islam can be honestly portrayed as both peaceful and opposing horrible violence against people … and violent conquerors out to behead anyone who disagrees. Because both are true.

Christopher Taylor, “I’M THE GOOD GUY HERE”, Word Around the Net, 2014-05-23.

Powered by WordPress