The Kalashnikov Paradox and the Gaza Solution

Enlightened Export of 2nd Amendment Democracy? 72

After being in “school” for half a century, we have learned a great deal about the Kalashnikov automatic rifle. At least we have learned all sorts of technical things. Along with other ambitious colonial powers and decades of rather sordid schemes and other adventures, our own American forces have met this weapon all around the world, and our diplomats have met the unexpectedly determined men and women who carried it.

We certainly haven’t missed many details about the machine itself. What we have missed is the essence of precisely what it meant to be one of those carrying one. The United States has consistently tried to frame the motivation of those we have confronted in our own frame. They were not in our frame of reference at all. Our insistence that these adversaries were, somehow, just like us aside from some ideological differences allowed us to make them incomprehensible.

Portrayed in our press as it ignored this “frame” problem, we simply could not understand these enemies of ours very well at all. It turns out that our awkward mystery had less to do with the Kalashnikovs than with the minds and bodies pulling their triggers. Now, at the start of 2009, we find ourselves, once again, paying an uncomfortably heavy wage for our lack of perception.

Kalashnikov imposed interesting requirements on his design. One was the extreme durability of the weapon. Did he think that “wars of liberation” could never finally succeed? His weapon design was so durable that it almost always remained quite serviceable at the moment when victory finally prevailed in these conflicts. That led to a new, revolutionary government inheriting a population of well armed former insurgents. In these historically dynamic moments, an experienced and well armed revolutionary force of irregulars could turn on the new government as quickly as it had risen up against the previous one.

Our lingering view of war

Thanks largely to the “incomprehensible motivation” of these adversaries mentioned before, we have gradually mutated our most fundamental concepts about war, not to necessarily make them more realistic or accurate, but at least to make them more comfortable, that is, more comfortable than “incomprehensible motivation.”

We have made all these variations within what we call insurgencies, vacuously homogenous. We have formalized, for ourselves, a blanket condemnation of war, devoid of details. We have repeatedly sought what we called “ceasefires,” regardless of the substance of the issues of combat, claiming that our position was “high ground.”

Worst of all, we have wandered into this unusable wasteland with the perspective of a colonial power, a “super power,” although we deny it. Naturally, that approach strands our considerations of the reality of such matters back in the frame problem. Again.

At the moment we are confronted with folks, most carrying, of course, Mr. Kalashnikov’s rifles, in eastern Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and, most recently, in Gaza among other places. If all these conflicts ended tomorrow, another list of other conflicts is already prepared to replace them. In every case our insistence on what we call “negotiations” or our proposals for “disarmament” seem to be strange songs played out in alien notes. When we speak of limiting proliferation of conventional weapons, our song becomes even less interesting.

“Gosh,” we think, “if only we could get them to stop fighting. They just seem to prefer the mayhem of war.”

Three quick visits to the war zones

Consider Darfur. The problem seems to be that only one side of the conflict is doing all the shooting. If you are a refugee woman who needs to gather firewood, you face the prospects of being raped. You are effectively helpless. The bad guys have all the guns (What else? Kalashnikovs, of course), and you’ve seen them in action. You are trapped without any particular protection or alternatives.

Consider Zimbabwe. The government and the army seem intent on wrecking everything. There is no work. There is no food. There is no help allowed. You have seen everyone who has raised his voice disappear. Usually for good. Sure, there’s probably politics involved somewhere, but at the moment it is a problem of food for your family, cholera and desperate, hopeless violence. You are trapped without any particular protection or alternatives.

Consider Gaza. Your home and family know that the “crazies” are in your backyard shooting rockets at Israel. You know that, inevitably, an Israeli jet fighter will come and bomb them. And you. And your house. And your family. Yet, there is nothing you can do. Even if you have a bit of ideological sympathy for the situation, they have all the guns and you’ve seen them in action. You are trapped without any particular protection or alternatives beyond abandoning your house. With your family.

An unlikely proposal

All these unfortunate situations have reached their present grave states based on a firepower problem. The reasonable folks caught up in them have no weapons. The unreasonable folks who seem to be in charge have plenty of weapons.

The solution? Arm everybody, except arm them in a special way.

Of course, pouring modern firepower into these already troubled regions seems outrageously stupid. We know that arming people has a bad habit of coming back at us, especially when we are arming them with our normal ambitions of exploiting them later, when they’ve run off the current crop of bad guys who won't let us exploit them.

We need to consider a different approach to arming them. We need to reinvent the Kalashnikov. We need a new weapon, and it needs to be a “Temporary Rifle.”
Please consider the following design specifications before you quit reading.

1. Temporary: It lasts no longer than one year. It can’t be repaired or refurbished. It can’t be stored away for later. One year is it. Replacement parts won’t help. It can’t be modified to last longer than one year. After that, it’s useless. Perhaps it can only fire two hundred shells before it’s, of course, useless.

2. Durable: It’s tough enough, not for longevity, but for rough delivery. A single rifle and its ammunition needs to be tough enough for an air drop. We won’t be making ambitious little stinky agreements with warlords. We will be arming everyone who can pick up a rifle that has been air dropped. The provision of these weapons will be what diplomats call “unilateral.” No strings attached.

3. Caliber: These rifles use ammunition of such a bizarre caliber that absolutely nothing else will fit or fire in them. If things move in a positive direction, we can drop more ammunition the same way we dropped the rifles. Should we adopt this plan, we can change the ammunition every year or for every conflict. Black market ammunition production won’t look so appealing if the only rifles it will fit are all going to be gone in a year.

4. Range: A 100 yard maximum range should be plenty. Any more, and our rifles suddenly become useful for invasions. That’s not the plan. These are strictly home (and possibly village, possibly neighborhood) defense weapons. No rockets launched in our back yards. No women raped gathering firewood. No “disappearances” at the heavy hands of the police. At least not here and not now.

5. Simple: These rifles have to be easy to use, easy to fire, easy to clean and easy to learn. No one gets any training. Everyone who has one understands the nature of the weapon and its limits. The caliber needs to be small enough for old people, women, and, yes, children to successfully aim and fire.

Is the old frame of reference beginning to slip a little?

If you are that family man in Gaza with the rockets firing from his back yard, and you are armed, you are no longer helpless. Especially if your neighbors have a similar position. If you stop the rockets, you are no longer a civilian. If you don't stop the rockets, you are also no longer a civilian. At least there will be no invasion.

A new picture of strategic success

When all these rifles have done their duty for a year, does it mean that our American businessmen will have complete access to the place where we dropped them? No. The rifles will simply be gone. The results on the ground will be the results accomplished by the people with the rifles.

Hopefully, the people who gathered them up after the air drop have made some progress for themselves, for their situation. Hopefully, the bad guys have mellowed a little once all their old victims started shooting back.

Maybe a popular government is hatching out of the chaos. Maybe the new “man in charge” will remember how quickly his entire population can be armed, for a year, before he starts getting as outrageous as the last government he's replaced.

So, perhaps a good shipment of our new “Temporary Rifles” brings about a “little more war.” Maybe a “little more war” is what was needed all the time, especially when, in this “little more war,” everyone has a gun. At least, everyone has a gun for a year.

Do we have to land troops? Do we have to sit back and bemoan the cruelty that we just can’t stop? Do we have to fire up an endless hot bed of one crazy autocrat murdering the last crazy autocrat? Do we have to attempt “ceasefires” one after another while every opportunist in the play maneuvers for another tidbit, oblivious to the hardship he is imposing on all the people and the rest of the world giggles?

Our 2nd Ammendment has served us well for two hundred years. There have probably been some who would have launched usurpations but abandoned their plans because everyone was armed. Maybe we should share a good idea.

Think about it.

Not up to date with the details of Gaza's conflict? Juan Cole is a fairly good choice:
http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/gaza-war-hunh-what-was-it-good-for.html

and a pretty good, "bigger picture" link:
http://www.nipissingu.ca/department/history/MUHLBERGER/2009/01/gaza-war-in-wider-context.htm

A Short and Bitter Fiction

Why not science fiction?
Are we really ready to elect something like this? 55


Consider the news for Friday, May 8, 2009.

“This is CDN News Service. I am Harry Smith. The summary of today’s events:

White House medical affairs spokesman, Jerry Hart, today announced that President McCain, now in the ninth day of his coma, has been transferred along with the White House medical staff to facilities at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Hart told reporters that the President’s condition had stabilized, making the trip in Marine One to Maryland an acceptable risk. Photographers were not allowed during the transfer.

White House Spokeswoman, Lydia Blank, spoke to reporters at the daily briefing, “We expect President McCain to make a full recovery and to return to the Oval Office within a few days.”

In other news, Vice President Palin is returning to Washington six days earlier than scheduled from the African Union meeting in Khartoum. Unofficial sources close to the White House have said that Air Force Two is being escorted by long range Navy combat aircraft.

Her return is just one day after the African Union’s insistence that the “College of the Redeemer,” two educational facilities which opened earlier this year in Khartoum and Mogadishu by USAID, be closed, a demand supported by a number of NATO allies. It is hoped that the closure will soften the African Union’s demand for a reduction of US peace keepers in Darfur and slow the increasing number of recent attacks on peace keeper forces from both the refugee settlement there and the insurgents. The representatives of the African Union at the Khartoum meeting have placed the matter under advisement.

In New York, the Russian Federation’s UN Ambassador, Vitaly Schevshenko, has formally issued a statement reemphasizing his nation’s complete support for the African Union’s demands, telling CDN’s UN reporter, “Our friends in the region clearly have no interest in American soldiers, colonial oil schemes or religion. They know only too well the price they will pay for allowing those things. I hope all member states of the African Union know they do not face this latest American intervention alone.”

Meanwhile, House members of the Armed Forces and Foreign Relations Committees have unanimously voted to urge the President to withdraw US forces from the Darfur mission based on cost considerations as the US economy continues to worsen.

To other news, at the first official news conference on the destruction of the Cruiser USN Hampton and the Chevron tanker, Titan, in the Persian Gulf last week, a Navy spokesman released the initial results of the investigation.

“The explosion was a nuclear device targeting the Hampton. Titan was destroyed due to its proximity to the primary target. We now know that the device causing the explosion was not a missile or a weapon released from an aircraft, although its origin remains uncertain. Additional threats made by Sheik Kadid in the second video, released this week, are being studied by the Department of the Navy. Naval Intelligence is so far unable to determine if these videos were prepared by those responsible for the attack.”

White House reporters were not allowed questions at the briefing.

Finally, the Vice President’s policy advisor, Pastor Danny Truth, is being rushed to Washington for top level consultation with Sara Palin upon her return. White House spokeswoman, Lydia Blank, told reporters about the move today.

“Pastor Truth’s return to Washington at this time should encourage Americans. His attendance at the National Security Meeting next Tuesday indicates that the Vice President is considering all alternatives for the US response to the Gulf attack.”

Honestly Appraising Why We Can't Do Much

The birthing mist of a new world order or the tears of the patriots?
It just becomes so tedious to keep pretending. 48

How far will we extend the destructive echo of this President and his tormented friends? How grave will we determine his petulance for the desecration of everything in his sight? Of course, we lick the economic wounds of a country looted to exhaustion and exasperation by his cronies, always covered by the authority of his office. Of course, we try to overlook the outrages his friends have perpetrated on our fellow American citizens, elections stolen in brazen crimes, bizarre, ambitious power concentrated with his penchant to be able to “arrest” any of us without charge, hearing, lawyer or law, policy disasters at home and over seas.

Are they somehow feeling more secure with the Governor of Louisiana secreted away in a federal prison? Are they reassured when the desperate voices of Katrina’s victims are silenced by their media friends? Do they feel vindicated when the outrageous crimes of Tom DeLay and Jack Abramhoff drift into the morass of yesterday’s news? Are they laughing and saying “I told you so! They’ll do nothing!” when they seem to have eluded the consequences of their illegal wire tapping? It is a grim picture of our descent from the rule of law, a grisly movie the world's worst watch for inspiration.

Are these usurpers frightened yet?

We, as citizens, might still claim that our failings here amount to no more than a little bad hygiene in the maintenance of our election powers and our democracy. We could, in fact, claim that had we somehow limited the spread of this greedy toxin to only the regions within our own shores. If that had been the case, our tragic embarrassment would have been solely our own private national affair, a domestic thing. We could have credibly told the world to wait, that we would correct our transgressions here at home, then, when that house keeping was accomplished, we would have once again begun to behave in a rehabilitated way consistent with our claims about ourselves. Consistent with our brave traditions. Consistent with our ideals and our national heritage.

Consistent with the incredible possibilities of our Constitution.

Sorry. It has spread beyond the borders and beyond our hope that it might be contained. It is raging around the world as a violent science fiction monster, encouraging every despicable cast off loser everywhere to abandon any fear of either our decency or our retribution. All these wretched little villains have found gangrenous bravado as they copied this President and his criminal friends. Whatever reluctance previously visited on the machinations of these little demons has been castrated. Now the brutes are finally emancipated from any concern that their monstrous ambitions might be countered, or even, criticized by the optimistic insistence of ideals from this country. Not only have we unleashed our own government’s threatening hubris on our own citizens, we have made the bloody spectacle of every tinhorn savage around the world abundantly acceptable. Once that minor detail was actualized, the blood bath began. And began quite horribly with a wrenching impunity that simply wasn’t there before we made a shallow, unmarked grave for our old high born thoughts here at home.

What in the hell are you talking about?

So the Russians invade Georgia, an ally of ours (or, at least, an ally of our President. Georgia turns out to be one of the three places on the planet where the locals still like him.). Naturally, as we sit here stupefied, bankrupt and effectively demilitarized, we are no more than a toothless bore as our President pleads with the new (not pretended) powers of the world to try to be a little more decent. Should our irritating complaints about Georgian sovereignty become too shrill, perhaps those mean old Russians will trot out the most deflating argument of all, the argument about our own failed colonial ambitions as we attack and occupy based on unexamined lies.

It seems that we have fumbled even the cheapest of our neo-con traditions, that is, of course, the choreagraphy of our famous, Republican "October Surprise." Its rescheduling to August is understandable, given the disheartening McCain campaign. The usual, really "stinky" side of things is certainly trotted out in fine form. McCain's primary international affairs adviser is a well paid lobbyist for the government of Georgia, no doubt providing a "wink and a nod" concerning that country's self-destructive challenge to the Russian Federation's 58th Army.

Massive deception being the currency of the neo-con realm, perhaps the Georgians were led to believe that, with our backing, their aggressive moves against their giant neighbor might be tolerated. Now, the Georgians, along with most of the rest of the countries in the world, understand that our backing is not much more than talk. Our "October Surprise," usually initiated by some sort of "unprovoked" attack by one of our "saved for a rainy day" enemies somewhere, is designed this time to use the military resources (and the blood) of others.

Will someone as inept as our President actually be able to replace the old "saber rattling" of our past "October Surprises" with an entirely "privatized" version where all the players are foreign? Wasn't there another Island of Granada somewhere with "trapped" college students closer to home? Sorry. Not if it requires anything from the American military. The cupboard is bare taking care of our violent international oil extraction schemes.

At least they can film a few dead Russians there in South Osetia to “justify” their violence.

Did we think that a punkish, out of date dictator such as Mr. Mugabe would show his blood soaked indifference to his people without the benefit of a failed, vacuous government here? Once his dread of some sort of American response to his outrages was nicely laid to rest, his real nature began to surface. Hollowed out as we are, the world can hardly expect the skeletal remains of the United States to actually do anything except send our useless diplomats to whine in chorus. Without an army or an economy those diplomats have also been rendered toothless.

In Sudan we have mastered the ability to countenance genocide. All of our promises after Rwanda have been made into cold soup for our meager breakfast. We dare not ostracize our cash master, the Chinese, or in any way perturb their profitable, and now, understandable complicity in the killing. Perhaps our task now is to learn how to continue our pretenses about ourselves while we watch helplessly.

Mr. Bin Laden’s great victory was once well diluted by our media and opinions. Now we see that he has emaciated our resources with his clever management of the poor, frightened old women in Washington. Bin Laden’s targeting was superb and astonishingly effective. With only a pocketful of insurgent tactics he has disabled our Constitution just as certainly as if he had hit Habeas Corpus with a shoulder fired grenade launcher. If we think the blasted hole in the Cole was a terrifying development, perhaps we should compare it to the ashy remnants of our Bill of Rights.

Bin Laden’s suspicious immunity has even become acceptable to us. Perhaps better said, his constant escapes have been made acceptable to us. We have even been slowly convinced that this failure, among all the others, doesn’t imply that we remain anything but a super power, an absurdity made possible by the ugly implication that skepticism had become treason.

This ugly list of nobodies who have embraced this opportunity to behave any way they wish could go on for many pages. Silly us. We thought Iran would be the next addition to this rolling disaster.

Do those vacuous eyes, wallowing in a pathos of psychotic bewilderment, betray a deep inner terror when considering the murderous complexity of Hamas and Hezbollah, now met with little more than hopeful abstractions of foreign policy? Do those weary jowls blush while watching Mr. Putin, into whose soul he claims to have glimpsed a trustworthy hint of reason, massacre our friends? Can his machine of deception somehow reconcile his associates’ rage about appeasement by the reasonable to his own desperate appeasement made necessary in the ruins of no other possibilities?

The awful example of our leadership has caused harm to the people of the world far beyond our borders. His comment that “Oceans no longer protect us...” is little more than a nagging migraine to those of us left stranded here in the corpse of America. We have long ago lost the luxury of bemoaning our own dilapidated state. We are now fully in “survival mode,” frighteningly distant and uninterested in much more than the painful, grave challenges we now face on almost every front. Our intuition as citizens now faces the unavoidable. We have lost a class war.

The whole idea of the protection of the oceans, frankly, became much more a warning to those outside our country. Our national self-serving misdirection and greed seem to have established themselves as propositions both devoid of shame and quite waterproof.

The Basic Rules of Conflict

Rifles for Peace 18

Military conflicts, no matter who hosts them or what the prize might be, are habitually fought at levels. There are players who involve themselves -- or, in fact, instigate the matter -- for the final incentive of great material gains, usually the control of resources or stabilized power for all sorts of advantage. There are the others, aside from the plebiscite who inevitably make the armies of the ambitious, who will struggle to resist the reassignment of wealth sought by the former, commonly those with control of such advantages at the outset.

In the isolated calm of the United States we receive the news of such conflicts portrayed as abstractions. And not, by the way, as innocent portrayals. Our images are always constructed from the fabric of the implied interests of the participants if not outrightly as their conveniently named ideologies. National sincerity which would reasonably be directed at the man with his finger on the trigger or the man with the new bullet hole in his chest is de-energized as these players are replaced with speech makers and bar charts estimating the change in ownership of, well, everything involved.

We indulge media focused on the reasons for conflict rather than the results of it. As a consequence, we willingly make the assumption that the whole affair is little more than a misunderstanding, one we could correct if only all those at war weren’t so mistakenly head strong. Or religious. Or hungry. Or thirsty. Or even, perhaps, if these victims didn’t mind so much when they were raped. Or enslaved. Or made into refugees. Sometimes, there is not enough of anything for both sides to have what they need.

Oh, it all seems so intractable! We simply must take sides or miss the opportunity to flaunt our sterile high ground. Yet, all these people are so difficult! Our historical national maturity makes the enticing suggestion that it might be better to let them get it all out of their systems. After all, in every case future peace has begun with the stink of the moments after the battles have ended.

Is there a possibility of ending it? We seem, as a nation, unable to rise above our greed long enough to make much of a contribution. Every time it appears that we are ready to help, we see the same depressing old style U.S. subterfuge. Fifteen billion dollars for AIDS in Africa seemed like a truly high-borne idea. Yet, we find contracts for the most expensive drugs from our U.S. suppliers. We see a nifty new trade agreement with India to stop producing generics. We see a grotesque President with his erectile fascination with abstinence.

Is anyone else embarrassed?

There might be a solution arriving on this troubled scene -- one materializing from an unlikely quarter. Returning to this violent inclination infecting our world, we have always been, at least we have said we were, strong proponents for disarmament. Gee, if we could initiate a cease fire and follow it up with a major dose of “turning in” weapons, peace might break out in these four hundred or so constant local wars.

Perhaps the solution lies in driving these ugly little situations in a different direction. Instead of disarming the combatants, perhaps we should consider arming them!

Now, with existing technology this might seem to a bit of a stretch. However, with new technology there might be, at least, a fleeting promise of making sense from some of this chaos. After all, what is going on now is a picture of refugees, rape victims and other war torn civilians. Military violence has a special attraction when one side is heavily out gunned in the conflict. This idea holds true whether you find the conflict in the deepest jungles of Africa or in the first class section of a hijacked air liner. Indulging either temptation turns out to be much less “manly” when everyone can shoot back!

Yet, pouring guns into unstable regions, at least guns in the current sense of the word, can guarantee and endless struggle. Placing guns, again guns in the current sense of the word in the hands of every airline passenger, would probably evoke all sorts of mischief. We will need different guns!

Visit the train wreck at Darfur. Supply them all with weapons and ammunition, but supply them with weapons which can last no longer than one year. At the end of their usable cycle, these guns become permanently worthless. During the year, put such a rifle in the hands of the woman who was raped and beaten on the way to her watering hole. See if conditions change.

Weapons such as these could probably never be used in much of an offensive way [there is still the issue of ammunition supplies]. On the other hand, slugs pass through the bodies of bullies with the same effect as they do when passing through the bodies of civilians.

As for the jet liners. Put a pouch under the tray table. It is locked until the pilot throws a panic switch in the cockpit. Then it falls open, placing an airline version of a single shot, gas cartridge driven weapon in the hands of every passenger. It fires a tumbling plastic bullet that cannot penetrate the shell of the fuselage, but can penetrate the body of a hijacker.

Gee whiz! Can we think that passengers could handle this? Possibly the young men, perhaps soldiers on the way home, but never the old man who has already had a couple of beers or the old lady who was doing her knitting just before the mad man took over. Gosh, some of them would miss! Darn, some of them would never do it!

On the other hand, if you were a nervous hijacker and you suddenly saw twenty or thirty of these little guns pointing at you from the passenger seats in the plane, well, it might change the way things turned out in the end.

Arms for peace? Why not?