Cpt. James Cook set sail on the second of his three voyages on this date in 1772.  On his first, he mapped New Zealand and became the first recorded European to reach the eastern coast of Australia (though, with the number of ‘lost’ islands, which were rediscovered years later and voyages which either never returned, or were never really sure where they landed, its plausible someone else landed first.  Only plausible).  On his second he destroyed the myth of Terra Australis, and on the third, destroyed the myth of the Northwest Passage.

In a culture and a society which, throughout our history, is known for breaking boundaries and going in the proverbial Star Trek fashion, “where no man has gone before,” we have a lack of knowledge about any sort of exploration.  Lewis and Clark, Charles Lindburgh, and Neil Armstrong – thats about it.  The European explorers who came before and charted the American landscape, Robery Perry or Robery Gray – all important in the history of America, none really known.

This doesn’t even go into Humboldt, Dampier, Anson, Halley, or other European explorers who charted so much of the world.

Not really much of a rant, but I do wish we were taught more.  There are always new heights to reach, and looking back over even just the past 300 years, the inspiration to go out into the unknown holds such promise.

Cool.  Free trade agreements – agreements establishing zones only from one country to another – remain a muddled mass in my brain.  I tend to be in favor of free trade zones or multi-country agreements, because the reliance on one other country, which can flood one’s markets with cheap imports, can be devastating.

I bring the free trade agreement up only because the passing of the FTA with Colombia and dealing with the FARC have been closely interrelated.  In establishing paramilitaries to fight the FARC, the Colombian government unleashed a monster it was quickly unable to control.  For a long time, it seemed Uribe was resisting giving help to the victims of the violence in his own country.

The history of Plan Colombia is a microcosm of errors and vertical thought.  The thought seems to have been:

They have drugs.

They have an insurgent group producing drugs.

Destroy the insurgent group.

Because out of all the potential Plan Colombia had – dealing with very serious drug issue through a wide range of solutions, almost an essence of “in context of everything else” which such problems have to focus on before they are solved – the finalized version gave a load of money to the military and counter narcotics and little or none to development, and giving people a reason to not grow cocoa.  A refrain from Thomas Barnett in China (actually, in most places) is if you give people an inch  - ie, Google with censorship – they will find a way to go a mile, and get around the obstacles in place.  Well, if you don’t give people anything, they are going to spend their creativity finding ways to grow what they’ve grown before and what makes money.

We do live in a time where problems are not solved only by addressing them in their own context; they are solved by looking at how they relate to everything else.

Drones ‘kill dozens’ in Pakistan – BBC

Drones in Pakistan.  What are the roles of drones in modern conflict?  It can reach places troops cannot immediately hit, and its much cheaper than regular air strikes.  The drone, however, is the new object of scorn among killing civilians.  Hit a population center and the negative press starts.

The biggest asset of the drone, however, is the quickness and stealth of its approach.  It takes away the “hide” of insurgent groups (or the ones it can turn its cameras on, at least).  Mao took his supporters on the top of a mountain to avoid government troops, who never caught most of them – they scattered or fought back.  Drones force a change in that action.

There’s nothing new to be added to this discussion, its just a fascinating power struggle.  The F-22 looks cool and is big and bad and awesome, but what is it used for?  Over the next fifty years, the American military will need a lot more quantity than it has now, and the F-22 is just expensive – an estimated$137.5 million per plane, as compared to $85 million for the F-35.   There’s no “what if China attacks us,” because there is no world where the United States cedes all control of international actions to others and has to purchase a huge defensive shield.

Onto the show!

Fuller’s introduction to this work makes one point clear: the barbarism of history pales to the barbarism of today.  He is correct in this analysis, for while the barbarism of the past was more personal in application, the barbarism of today slaughters hundreds at the touch of a button.  Fifty years ago, it was millions at the drop of a few bombs.

He furthers this line of thought in stating, “it is the inventive genius of man which has obliterated his sense of moral values.”  I don’t discount the obsessive nature of man about technological implements, but more than the continued development of weapons, it is the development of the nation-state and nation-state war which led mankind down this destructive path.  Granted, Fuller is focused on “the things man fights with, and how throughout the ages these things have influenced history,” and in his work he shows how armaments led to the creation of states.  The only point here is that, as opposed to sides making bigger and better armaments for armaments sake, sides created bigger and better methods for waging war.  The weapon is intertwined with philosophy, politics, economics, and other forms of thought and description of societies.

The final point Fuller makes in his introduction is the growing separation between war and peace – war is seen in the context of war.  This schism is retracting; the war in Iraq proved that while an invasion, the ideal American form of war, is easy to pull off, creating the context for peace is much more difficult.  At the height of nation-state warfare (WWII), Fuller’s point took perfect clarity.  There was war, and the peace was going to come eventually.  Today, peace needs the right context, because peace is viewed as the creation of a state through institutions (not a nation-state – Afghanistan will never be a nation-state, nor will Iraq as currently defined).  In this respect, mankind has come a long way. As opposed to the wanton destruction during war, we now work towards the process of creation during occupation.

The point, at the end of this review, will be some insight as to how armament affects today, and the past two decades, dating to the fall of the Soviet Union.  This is probably a book in and of itself, but hey! There is space here.

My head is abuzz with the idea of where this movement is going to end, so here is a random list of thoughts:

-Cable News really, really sucks.

-NYT, BBC are really really good

-Following all of this live on Twitter is thrilling

-Twitter is never going to have problems raising money again

-Even if this peters out or is crushed, things are never going to be the same.  Either the regime in Iran will be scared out of their minds, or they will make the next election much more transparent. If this movement goes nowhere, the next election will see what it brought about.

-If the army opens fire, and a lot of people are killed, can (and will) Obama still have talks?  Or will the backlash in the west be too strong against it?

-If the movement continues to roll – at what point do other nations get involved and how far does it roll?  At the moment, I’d hope there are large amounts of cash funding this opposition to keep the movement going.

-An armed uprising is a terrifying thought.  Iran has a lot of people and is the keystone of the MidEast.  Civil war there would be devastating.

I don’t know what to make of this because I’ve no idea how its going to turn out.  Either the government bends and allows new elections, or they shoot into crowds and the struggle stops being about fair elections and starts being against the government.  It is the proverbial rock and a hard place, but the decision of the matter rests there.  Unless the Ayatollah’s thought is to wait the protests out, and they will drift away (unlikely) – that seems what they are doing now, though.  Enough violence to crack down, not enough to warrant total international outrage, hope it stops when the protesters realize its pointless.

I don’t think that’s going to work.

EU Foreign Ministers Reach Consensus on Visa Liberalisation for Western Balkans – seeurope.net

Its inevitable the Balkans will join the EU in the next 5 years or so; though it would be nice if Turkey were to join soon, it will probably only after the Balkans join. That little free trade area, when it happens, ought to be neat.