Remember back in the Good Old Days when for years and years we were slaughtering all those pesky farmers in Southeast Asia because each succeeding President "didn't want to be the first American President to lose a war?"
Guess what.
Imagine an energy source that is unlimited, clean, safe, and available now. An energy source that is so scalable, it can be used to power anything from an 18-wheel truck to a city the size of New York. An energy source for which all the science and most of the engineering has already been done. An energy source so clean that it has a zero carbon and nuclear footprint. An energy source so safe, you could put an infant care center next door to it. An energy source that can be retrofitted to every fossil fired or nuclear fired power plant on the planet. An energy source for which you'd pay a tiny fraction of what you pay today for electricity. A technology which the United States could export and earn trillions of dollars in foreign exchange credits.
Sound like a fairy tale? It's not. It's been available since October 2006, but the Bush Administration killed it because it needed the insignificant amount of money required to fund it's final engineering development for the Iraq War. What's worse, its inventor and project leader died in 2007.
Dr. Robert Bussard, the inventor of what's called the Polywell Farnsworth-fusor, was one of those rare individuals able to bridge the gap between theoretical physics and practical engineering. While at NASA, he developed a nuclear propulsion system that could have taken us at a fraction of current costs in a single-stage rocket from the surface of the Earth to the surface of Mars in two weeks and back again, instead of the months and billions required for multi-stage chemical rockets. It would have reduced our moon landings to day trips. That project was killed as a result of internecine warfare at NASA. NASA's big ticket contractors correctly saw the end of their costlier, less effective systems in that developed by Dr. Bussard and successfully lobbied to kill it. While still at NASA, Dr. Bussard also designed an interstellar ramjet that could propel a vessel to the stars. That, too, still sits somewhere on a forgotten NASA shelf.
When the Navy decided it needed a smaller, safer power plant for its nuclear fleet, it hired Dr. Bussard to make it happen. He succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, coming up with the now scrapped fusion reactor that could have changed human society and history and saved the planet.
There are three obstacles that need to be surmounted before this technology can benefit us. The first are scientifically illiterate Washington politicians in Congress and the White House who seldom make wise decisions on anything more complex than bridges to nowhere. Next are the web of university and private research organizations that benefit from the non-performing but enormously lucrative big ticket programs administered by the Department of Energy. Finally, there are the private energy companies whose fossil fuel and nuclear products will be rendered obsolete by this new technology.
Taken together, these obstacles may well be insurmountable. It may take a private actor like a Warren Buffet or a Bill Gates to provide the roughly $200 million required to fund a demonstration project. Make no mistake, however. If this is funded in the private sector, whoever steps up to the plate will become not only a social icon but the planet's first trillionaire.
For a good explanation of Dr. Bussard's technology, see the WikiPedia article on the Polywell Farnsworth-fusor (also known as Electrostatic Confinement Fusion).
Before he died, Dr. Bussard gave a talk to Google employees about his new fusion technology:
Listen also to this earlier interview.
Dr. Bussard's original website: http://www.emc2fusion.org.
Freelance reporter Nir Rosen was invited to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last Wednesday, April 2, 2008. Mr. Rosen is a highly respected journalist who has reported extensively on Iraq as both an embedded reporter and independently. His written statement, submitted to the Committee before he testified, is available here.
Some of his more telling comments:
Today Iraq does not exist. It has no government. It is like Somalia, different fiefdoms controlled by warlords and their militias.
Now thanks to the Americans the Sunnis, formerly on the run, are once again confident, and control their own territory. The Mahdi Army is consolidating its forces, ridding itself of unruly elements and waiting for the inevitable reduction in American troops. Iraqi
Security Forces will also be able to once again operate with impunity when there are less Americans present. Both sides are getting ready to resume fighting.
Iraq remains an extremely unstable and failed state, with many years of bloodshed left before an equilibrium is attained. There is no reconciliation occurring between the two warring communities, and Shiites will not allow the territorial gains they made to be chipped away by Sunnis returning to their homes, or Sunni militias being empowered.
Most embedded journalists, just like embedded politicians and embedded members of think tanks on Washington’s K Street or Massachusetts Avenue, lack language skills and time on the ground in Iraq—and since they are white, they cannot travel around Baghdad without attracting attention and getting kidnapped or killed. They know nothing about Iraq except what they gain through second- or third-hand knowledge, too often provided by equally disconnected members of the US military. Recently we have seen positive articles about events in Iraq published by so called experts such as Anthony Cordesmen, Michael O’Hanlon, Kenneth Pollock, Fred Kagan and even former members of the Coalition Provisional Council such as Dan Senor. These men speak no Arabic and cannot get around without their babysitters from the American military. But it seems that the more they get wrong, these and other propagandists for the war, such as Thomas Friedman, manage to maintain their credibility.
Nir Rosen (born 1977 in New York City) is a journalist and a chronicler of the Iraq War. Rosen writes on current and international affairs.
Rosen is best known for his writings on the rise of violence in Iraq following the 2003 invasion, which form the basis of his first book, In the Belly of the Green Bird (2006). He spent more than two years in Iraq reporting on the Coalition occupation, the relationship between Americans and Iraqis, the development of postwar Iraqi religious and political movements, inter-ethnic and sectarian relations, and the Iraqi civil war.
He regularly contributes to leading periodicals, such as Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, the New York Times Magazine, the Boston Review, and Harper's. He contributed to the footage of Iraq in Charles Ferguson's documentary No End In Sight and was also interviewed for the film.
Nir Rosen is a fellow at the New York University Center on Law and Security, and a former fellow of the New America Foundation. In September 2007, he was the C.V. Starr Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin.
Aboard the Straight Talk Express, candidate McCain struggles with his inner dumbass...
You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was.
A wry look at the next generation of Republican leaders, captured in their own element. Courtesy of Max Blumenthal and videographer Thomas Shomaker via The Huffington Post.
Also posted at Daily Kos
Conservative pundit William S. Lind, an expert on military affairs and Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation, is privately advising unit commanders in Iraq to prepare their own versions of 5th century B.C. Greek general Xenophon's classic retreat north from Persia (present day Iraq and Iran) through Kurdish Iraq and Turkey.
"Higher headquarters are unlikely to develop such a plan, because if it leaked there would be political hell to pay in Washington. I would therefore strongly advise every American battalion and company in Iraq to have its own Operation Anabasis plan, a plan which relies only on its own resources and whatever it thinks it could scrounge locally. Do not, repeat, do not expect the Air Force to come in and pick you up."What prompts this doomsday advice?
"While dilettantes believe the attack is the most difficult military art, most soldiers know better. Carrying out a successful retreat is usually far harder.Lind then goes on to explain the vulnerability of US forces in Iraq, citing both their long supply lines through potentially hostile Shiite Iraq and the easily blocked exit through the Persian Gulf. Juan Cole, President of the Global Americana Institute, points out that the noose may already be tightening:
"One of history's most successful retreats, and certainly its most famous, is the "Retreat of the 10,000." In 401 B.C., 10,000 Greek hoplites hired themselves out as mercenaries to a Persian prince, Cyrus the Younger, who was making a grab for the Peacock Throne. Inconveniently, after the Greeks were deep in Persia, Cyrus was killed. The hoplites' leader, Xenophon, the first gentleman of war, led his men on an epic retreat through Kurdish country to the coast and home. Surprisingly, most of them made it. Safely back in Athens, Xenophon wrote up his army's story, cleverly titling it the Anabasis, which means the advance. It was not the last retreat so labeled."
"Someone in the Green Zone leaked the following memo, which shows that US personnel are now actually facing difficulties in getting food by convoy up from Kuwait. They avoid local food in the Baghdad region because of the danger guerrillas will poison it."Lind goes on to offer even more graphic advice:
Read the entire article here.What might such company and battalion plans entail? I asked that question of Dave Danelo, a former Marine captain who now edits U.S. Cavalry's "On Point" website. Dave was recently in Iraq with U.S. units as a journalist, so his knowledge is current. His suggestions include:
Have a route plan. Know where the safe areas are and why they are safe. For the Marines in Al Anbar Province, this could be Al Asad or Al Taqaddum Air Base. For soldiers in Mosul, it's Kurdistan. For troops in Baghdad, it's either of the above, or possibly Tallil Air Base in the south. For British troops in Basrah, who knows?
Apply the Joseph Principle. In the Bible, Joseph advised the Egyptians to store away their goods during the seven years of feast. When seven years of famine hit, they were ready. Husband large stashes of everything at the company/battalion levels: MREs, water, ammunition, and, most of all, fuel.
Iraqis, American contractors and oil companies have each developed parallel and redundant distribution systems that push fuel outside the U.S. military umbrella. Depending on who controls what in which neighborhood, these systems might remain intact if military supply lines are cut. Be prepared to commandeer these resources.
Learn the black market fuel system and exploit it. Although black market fuel is horrible on humvee engines, it will get your unit out of Baghdad and into a safe zone.
According to White House press spokesmodel, Tony Snow, the Russian Foreign Ministry has privately pointed out to the US Embassy in Moscow that Russian President Vladimar Putin's recent public remarks comparing the invasion and occupation of Iraq to actions of Adolph Hitler's Third Reich did not actually mention either President Bush or the United States by name.
Many people can now correctly spell the name of the capital of Iran, "Bagdad."
Test your attention span. Try to remember who made these statements about the Iraq War:
Apparently, there is no limit*.
Plus, their stuff is easier to fence while it's still in one piece.
