Pssst, Uncle Sam Can See You Naked

This is a picture of Susan Hallowell, who runs the Transportation Security Administration's research lab. Four years ago, she volunteered to be scanned by a backscatter x-ray machine, which sees through clothing. She was wearing a skirt and blazer. But in the picture, she's as good as nude.

Now it's your turn.

Like retarded children drooling over old comic-book ads for "X-Ray Specs!" and daydreaming of actually being able to see through clothing and and leer shapely women, America Top Cops™ at the Homeland Security Department/Transportation Security Administration have decided that in order for you to be Safe From Terror™, they have to be able to take naked photos of you.

Now, any kid with half a brain knew that X-Ray Specs were a novelty gag that didn't really work. But time marches on and technology makes the impossible possible. Get ready, air travelers, because this week the Homeland Security Department began using backscatters at airports to screen passengers for weapons. The first machine is up and running in Phoenix, Arizona. The next ones will be in New York and Los Angeles.

Are you ready to get naked to protect your country from Osama Bin Laden™?

This is no joke. The government desperately craves to look under your clothes. Ceramic knives, plastic guns, and liquid explosives have supposedly all made metal detectors obsolete. Carry-on bags are X-rayed, so the safest place to hide a weapon is on your body. Puffer machines can detect explosives on you, but only if you're sloppy. Backscatters are different. They can scan your whole surface, locating and identifying anything of unusual density—not just metals, which have high atomic numbers, but also explosives or, say, large sums of money and/or drugs, which have low ones.

Which may be the real reason the TSA is rolling out these types of scans. Not for the terrorists... but in order to help them catch people with undeclared cash or drugs on them. Hurrah! Another way to tie together the War On Terror™ with the War on Drugs™!

Of course, the TSA has downplayed the privacy concerns about these backscatter x-rays, saying that they've imposed very rigid protocols for this early "experimental" and "voluntary" use of backscatter x-rays. In Phoenix, for example, the TSA screener operating the machine can't see you in person -- he's in an entirely different airport terminal entirely. The idea being that it's totally cool for you to be strip-searched so long as you don't have to look at the face of the guy doing it to you via remote, I suppose. Additionally, the TSA's backscatter x-ray machines won't currently identify you by name, nor do they currently save scans of your naked body, nor do they currently print out scans of your naked body (as always, the key is their emphasis on the word CURRENTLY, of course). The TSA was also forced by privacy activists to "distort" the images the machine produces. Here are some examples of the "distorted" images:



Note that the sexual organs of both the male and female are very clearly visible

More importantly, the TSA's "voluntary submission" and "very rigid protocols" are just the proverbial camel's nose under the tent. It's very clear that someday everyone, without exception, will need to go through one of these things to get on an airplane. Of course, once that legal justification is made, then there isn't much reason that you can't be required to go through a backscatter everywhere else. To take a train. To get on a bus. To enter any courthouse or federal building. Every day at school. Private businesses.

And once we get to the point of private businesses requiring this technology ("but we Have To... it'll keep Puff Daddy's rap protégé from sneaking handguns into our club!"), then we immediately lose the strict procedures which are currently set in place for the TSA. Worse, there's no proof and it's not very likely that these proceedures will be enforeced at non-experimental airports once the program rolls out wide.

Think about the airport today... the TSA has proven completely incapable of getting luggage x-ray machines out of the lobbies of our airport terminals after SIX YEARS. Still we have to step up, check in, watch that luggage belt rotate behind the counter uselessly, then trudge with our luggage to a different part of the lobby, then undergo a pointless explosives residue test, then take the luggage to a different part of the lobby and stand in a NEW line and drop it off with the TSA who x-rays it right there in the middle of what used to be space for walking and THEN puts the luggage on the conveyor belt.

Where the hell are they going to put these x-ray strip show machines BUT in the middle of the lobby? Great, a new line to stand in. Oh, and for everyone standing behind the TSA guy to be able to see you naked. Sweet! Humliate Yourself For America!

Corporations will claim it's too much work, takes too many employees, etc. to have 2 people scanning entrants. People will rig their private machines to make jpegs, etc. Then we'll all be naked all the time. How better to cow and scare and terrify the Little People than to expose them in all their flabby nakedness?

Oh, and it'll only be the Little People, don't fool yourself. The powerful and wealthy won't be subjected to this bullshit... they'll just bypass all security just like they already do. No, this invasive bullshit is just for us plebes.

And in case you think I'm being overreactionary, think about this: Because of concerns about killing people with radiation, body scanners are designed not to penetrate the skin. All that's needed to defeat this entire system is for is someone heavily overweight to go through the system with a weapon or explosives pack tucked into a flabby body fold and it won't be detected by the scanner. For that matter, how big of an issue is it -REALLY- for a Terrorist who's perfectly willing to die for Allah to shove 10 pounds of C4 explosive up his ass in order to sneak it onto a plane?

Lastly, consider this simple question: would this technology have prevented 9/11? Answer: No. Those 19 men took common household objects on board that plane with them and then used them as weapons. Any of you could do today exactly what Mohammed Atta did with 19 friends armed with metal coat hangers and aluminum soda cans torn in half.

No, once again, this is baloney fake-o protection designed to make America FEEL safe while simultaneously stripping our Civil Liberties from us AND simultaneously shift tax dollars from the poor and working class to the wealthy connected few who own these defense corporations.

The Military-Industrial-Terrorism-Drug-Complex strikes again.

Here Comes War With Iran

Weird... I wonder if THIS story

Military Ties Iran To Arms In Iraq
Explosives Supplied To Shiite Militias, U.S. Officials Say
Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Feb. 11 -- Senior U.S. military officials in Iraq sought Sunday to link Iran to deadly armor-piercing explosives and other weapons that they said are being used to kill U.S. and Iraqi troops with increasing regularity.

During a long-awaited presentation, held in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the officials displayed mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and a powerful cylindrical bomb, capable of blasting through an armored Humvee, that they said were manufactured in Iran and supplied to Shiite militias in Iraq for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops.

"Iran is a significant contributor to attacks on coalition forces, and also supports violence against the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi people," said a senior defense official, who was joined by a defense analyst and an explosives expert, both also from the military. The analyst's exact titles and full names were not revealed to reporters. The officials released a PowerPoint presentation including photographs of the weaponry, but did not allow media representatives to record, photograph or videotape the briefing or the materials on display.

Could possibly have anything to do with THIS story?

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan passes two fishermen in their small boat as it leaves for its second deployment in a year from North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, California January 27, 2007. The Reagan is the third aircraft carrier headed to the Persian Gulf to support war efforts in Iraq. REUTERS/Fred Greaves

Naaah... I mean, big deal, so Bush is sending 3 out of our 10 aircraft carrier groups that currently cover the entire world to an area the size of my backyard just off the coast of Iran. That doesn't NECESSARILY mean that he's "secretly" planning to bomb the shit out of Iran... right? Oh, look over there, Anna Nicole Smith just died! Pay no attention to the war about to break out over here, look at the dead "celebrity"!!!

Huh, well, it worked for most people and almost all the Mainstream News Media... you must be one of those people who have that irritating habit of "thinking." Well, read on, then, smartass.

Sadly, though, even if America DOES decide to bomb the shit out of Iran using our mighty aircraft carriers, we might find that they're one HELL of a lot more capable of fighting back than Iraq ever was. See, the Iranians own several Russian-made SUNBURN anti-ship cruise missiles which will hurl 750 pounds of explosives towards our "mighty" aircraft carriers at an unstoppable Mach 2.1 -- you've heard of the sub-sonic French Exocet missile which sank British ships during the Falklands war? Compared to the super-sonic Sunburn, the Exocet is like a birthday candle compared to an atomic bomb. Here's a really horrifying article which makes clear what awaits our Navy should Bush think that he's Tuff Enuff™ to take on Iran... we're going to get our asses HANDED to us, courtesy of modern Russian missile design. Each of those carriers has 3100 US sailors on it plus the thousands more on the surrounding ships... I wonder what America's reaction will be when over 10,000 American sailors are killed in a single day by the Iranians after Bush starts his new, illegal war?

Worse, take a look at a map of the Persian Gulf... it's a GODDAMNED LAKE, with the Straights of Hormuz at the mouth. Iran controls the Straights of Hormuz, the only way in or out of the Persian Gulf... and with Iran's Sunburn missiles at the ready, whose Navy is going to come to our rescue? No one's... not even ours.

The writing has been on the wall for the Aircraft Carrier Battle Group concept for a LONG time... there's a reason that China hasn't built a bunch of them: they don't work in a world where a supersonic Sunburn cruise missile (which costs less than a single jet fighter on that aircraft carrier) can sink an entire carrier within a matter of seconds.

Sadly, though, we have an idiot for a President, a warmongering fool intent on defying all reality. Every foreign policy problem we have today can be directly tied back to Bush's desire to impose his fanciful visions onto the real world. When Bush desired to invade Iraq, he folded Saddam and Osama together into one Arch Enemy and he lied to the American people about Saddam having nuclear weapons. We all know how well THAT turned out.

Similarly, when Bush wanted to hide his intent to invade Iraq from the American people, he concocted the "Axis of Evil" starring Iraq, Iran & North Korea. The second he did so, he put Iran and North Korea on notice that he intended to invade them next (even if he didn't mean to), and he put us on the path to inevitable war with these two countries. He also silenced Iran's moderates who were seeking reapproachment with America... possibly permanently.

When Bush bombs Iran (or allows Israel to overfly Iraqi airspace in order to bomb Iran), we will give the Mullahs the excuse they need to crack down on their own people and to strike out against us. They're very likely to kick our ass in the process, a humiliation for which jingoistic, militarized America is VERY unready.

Our economy is increasingly based solely on Military Keynesianism. Given our outrageous foreign debts and the fact that we have offshored all manufacturing jobs, we now command our forefront in world finance based solely on our perceived military might as the world's last remaining Superpower. With our ground military currently devastated and almost defeated in Iraq, our Air Force & naval air power are the last remaining legs of our military might. A stinging rebuke in the Persian Gulf via Sunburn missile will shatter the world's perception of us, revealing our military as a paper tiger, and our economy will vanish overnight. Likewise, the sinking of 3 aircraft carriers will either force a humiliated America to embrace navel-gazing isolationism, or perversely make Americans so militaristically aggressive that we go on a rampage of unilateralist war to prove once again our will and means to fight. Neither solution is an appealing one.

Congress must act NOW to stop Bush's saber-rattling, they must act BEFORE Bush concocts a bullshit excuse to declare war on Iran, and they must decisively act to PREVENT this war at any cost. Otherwise, we can kiss America as we know it GOODBYE FOREVER.

Let's Just Stay In Iraq Forever, Then...

In the NYT's op-ed page, Ben Connable, a major in the Marine Corps who is no stranger to writing for the papers, says any talk of withdrawal from Iraq should take into account how that would affect the people on the ground. U.S. troops have withdrawn from Anbar Province twice, and each time, insurgents were quick to take over and proceeded to kill and torture many of those who were seen as friendly to U.S. interests.

Well, what are we to do, then? Connable (and whoever at the White House agreed to let him write opinion pieces for the Times) doesn't have an answer, but he DOES have a warning:

The confusion caused by withdrawal would be compounded as religious, militia and political loyalties divided inadequately prepared military and police units. Full-scale ethnic killing would become a very real possibility.

For some, the collapse of Iraqi society into Hobbesian mayhem is inevitable no matter how many American troops remain on the ground. A few argue that disintegration of the Iraqi state actually would bring about the national catharsis that seems so elusive today — that absolute civil war would be a greater good.

This cold calculus ignores the very real impact of an American withdrawal on the people we now protect. Any debate that does not consider the bloody reality we would leave in our wake does a disservice to the people of Iraq and the troops who have fought so hard to defend them.

Okay, so I guess you can put me into the "some" and "few" categories: I feel that Hobbesian mayhem is inevitable, a vicious round of ethnic cleansing unstoppable and the division of the country into three hostile territories inescapable and probably for the better.

The good major seems to think our first allegiance, however, is to the "people on the ground" in Iraq and to the "disservice... to the troops who have fought so hard to defend them." Here are my rebuttals to the good major: First, Abu Ghraib, Second, Haditha, Third, 200,000 dead Iraqi Civilians since we invaded and Fourth, "disservice" to the troops? IT'S YOUR FUCKING JOB TO DO WHATEVER YOU'RE ORDERED TO DO. If we order you to defend those Iraqis, you do it. If we order you to pull out, you do it. I'll tell you something that every single Social Worker, Teacher, Ambulance Driver, Cop, Fireman, and Doctor has hammered home to them in their early training on the job: Don't Get Attached. Fuck you and your "disservice" to the troops.

Let me get this straight, Major:
(1) The Bush Administration lied to the American people to falsify a case for war,
(2) The Bush Administration fatally screwed up the post-election planning,
(3) The Bush Administration deliberately ignored the State Department who tried to war everyone that Civil War was sure to follow after Saddam was deposed,
(4) The Bush Administration fucked up every opportunity to fix Iraq and instead concentrated assisting their rich friends in the looting of the $18 Billion "rebuilding" funds,
(5) Now, one invasion and failed rebuilding later, Bush says we can't leave or a civil war will break out?

Tough.

At this point, its exceptionally clear that Bush could give a rat's ass about the poor people of Iraq... he's reputedly killed between 50,000 and 200,000 of them by this point.

All this talk of staying "until the job is done" is to ignore the fact that the job will NEVER be "done." These people HATE each other. It's just like Yugoslavia... Tito kept that country together with an iron fist and when he died, poof... here comes the ethnic cleansing and wholesale slaughter. The same thing was clearly what was going to happen when Saddam was deposed, those of us on the Commie Traitor Left said so at the time, but stupid-ass Bush didn't even know there were three different kinds of Iraqis until 2 weeks before the invasion began.

The reason the Republicans don't want America out of Iraq now is because they don't want the inevitable civil war & genocide to happen on their watch. Once Bush is out of office, they will blame this entire war on the Democrats, they will blame the failure of Iraq on the Iraqis and they will make a deal with the genocidal Shiite victors for the oil.

It's clear now that this war was always about two things: (1) getting Bush relected as a heroic War President, and (2) The Oil. Nothing else ever mattered to these people, nothing else ever will.

Meanwhile, estimates have this war costing the taxpayers of America $2 Trillion dollars. That number goes up for every single day we're in Iraq. Bush has racked up an additional $4 Trillion in national debt since he took office. Soon there will be no money left for anything in our budget except for Social Security and paying interest on our debt.

This is the penalty we pay for our current system of Military Keynesyiaism. Until we are willing to stop the war spending, we will increasingly go broke paying for these wars until our foreign debtors (China: $825 Billion in US savings bonds and Japan $850 Billion in US savings bonds) close the books on our country and we find ourselves in the position of a third-world banana republic: broke & with a despotic ruler.

At some point America needs to look deep into its gut and ask itself: do the lives of foreigners (80% of whom want us to leave the country immediately) count more than the entire future of this country? Are the lives of these foreigners who want us gone worth more than our Constitution? More than our own children & grandchildren? More than our jobs and way of life? Because THOSE are the opportunity costs to America if we stay in Iraq and if we continue on our permanent war economy path.

This war is the straw which will break the camel's back: America is already headed towards becoming an impoverished debtor nation with no industry, no economy and a warped authoritarian government. Staying in Iraq means hastening that end.

The good major (and his Republican backers) want to stay in Iraq to protect the Iraqis from one another at the cost of bankrupting our nation. I think we should leave and let them fight it out amongst themselves and attempt to preserve our Republic from the debt and dictatorship which are both accumulating under this war. It's an easy choice for me... but then, my job doesn't require there to be an American Empire.