BBC tells us;

"Tony Blair came within moments of being killed when two Israeli fighter aircraft threatened to shoot down a private jet taking him to a Middle East conference in the belief that it might have been staging a terrorist attack."

If only.

I don't say that because I dislike the man - though Valen knows I despise the cuntrag - but the sheer irony overload that would have occurred if the plane had been splashed might have united the whole world, at least for a good long laugh.

The fine old conspiracy/deep history/psychotronoc/magical blog Skilluminati is back in strength. It's looking closely at 5th Generational Warfare.

But Cat, you ask - what the hell is that?

Well, if you've been reading John Robb - and frankly, you really should be - he's put you straight on the ethos behind 4th Generational war... the kind fought by small loosely-connected non-government groups against nation-states. The kind of war the new US doctrines about 'counterinsurgency' are devised to oppose. Which they're not doing so well at.

5GW (as Robb has occasionally mentioned) shifts the focus once again, from small but well-equipped and networked cells to 'superempowered individuals'. People with enough kit, nous and inclination to fight a nation-state or other large actor alone. And the best defence against those guys is either very resilient local systems and networks... or to become one yourself.

The 'Warfare' part of 5GW is perhaps a little tricky to fully deal with. It's a lot more Sun Tzu than mere combat, as these quotes from Skilluminati creator Justin Borland show:

' We've seen a nearly infinite array of permutations of "kill the enemy" -- 5GW is something new. Harmonize with the enemy, control the enemy, use the enemy. '

' I am unlike most 5GW bloggers in that I'm not worried about the future of the US as a global superpower. I'm writing for an audience very much like myself: post-nationalism, post-racism, post-religion human beings with no respect for authority, national borders or even the laws of physics. '

' Peter J. Carroll, who is himself a 5GW veteran, operating under a pseudonym and re-wiring tens of thousands of brains around the world, posed this question in terms of religion. On a planet with over 10,000 actively worshipped Gods -- none of which are currently visible, none of which can be proven to exist -- how can you be sure which Divinity to bet upon? Doesn't it make more sense to invest that faith in yourself?

With Skilluminati Research, I'm making the same argument on a political level. Why make appeals to power when you could build your own? You could be learning to weld, working out or reading a book with that valuable time. Why worry about your leaders when they can't actually control you, and don't care what you personally think, want or feel?

5GW is power.

Specifically, 5GW is dedicated individuals exercising their power to achieve their own goals at the expense of everyone who gets in their way. I think this kind of clarity is missing from the discussion because the occult dimension of power has no place in a respectable debate, from military theory to politics to history. For thousands of years, small groups of humans using ritual magick have been controlling nations, waging wars and engaging in economic and psychological warfare. One occult warfare master who does get mentioned in military circles is Hassan i Sabbah, long a muse of William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson.

I'm open to the argument that I'm only engouraging a plague of lone psychopaths declaring war on the world, but my own 5GW practice is informed and indebted to D.J. Kilcullen, author of the 28 Articles, which you should probably read right now if you haven't already. Article 26 states: "Build your own solution -- only attack the enemy when he gets in the way."

As I said at the outset of this project, "my interest in 5GW (5th Generation Warfare) is rooted in it's potential for positive social and cultural change." I am investigating warfare for the same reasons I investigated psychology and marketing -- because the tools of social control will be less damaging when they're widely distributed. Executives who have power over millions of other humans are inherently dangerous -- millions of humans with executive control over themselves is where we're headed this century.

The dinosaurs of governments and corporations and media conglomerates and think tanks and universities -- the old legitimate White Control System -- will not let go quietly and politely. So I think every future mutunt has a common-sense obligation to learn how to disable and disarm them as effectively as possible. This is going to be a very bumpy ride and we can all help minimize the bloodshed. '

A good interview with Justin is here.

Brin flagged this, and I've heard mutterings about them for a few days.

" ...have a look at InfraGard -- the FBI’s program to develop a quasi-secret network of private businesses that are shielded from normal transparency by trade secrets laws, to assist in guarding national infrastructure... and to get oligarchic privilieges, in return. "

From the Progressive article linked above:

' One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation—and what their role might be. He showed me his InfraGard card, with his name and e-mail address on the front, along with the InfraGard logo and its slogan, “Partnership for Protection.” On the back of the card were the emergency numbers that Schneck mentioned.

This business owner says he attended a small InfraGard meeting where agents of the FBI and Homeland Security discussed in astonishing detail what InfraGard members may be called upon to do.

“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out.
But that’s not all.

“Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says. '

The FBI denies this aspect of the group.
Rumours that the Church of Scientology are members, put about in a satire by unconfirmedsources.com, are just that as far as I know.
Either way, not a fun idea for US citizens who aren't mobbed up independent businesspeople already affiliated with InfraGard.

EDIT:
A differing perspective from the blog of an InfraGard member, just to try for some balance here. Very insistent that the 'free to shoot' bit is bollocks. That their next post is in support of the Anonymous protests (and the author co-wrote a history of the CoS/internet early years for Skeptic magazine) would indicate the Unconfirmed Rumour rumour remains just that.

"A third undersea fibre optic cable running through the Suez to Sri Lanka was cut Friday, said a Flag official.
Two other fiber optic cables owned by Flag Telecom and consortium SEA-ME-WE 4 located near Alexandria, Egypt, were damaged Wednesday leading to a slowdown in Internet and telephone services in the Middle East and South Asia.
"We had another cut today between Dubai and Muscat three hours back. The cable was about 80G capacity, it had telephone, Internet data, everything," one Flag official, who declined to be named, told Zawya Dow Jones.
The cable, known as Falcon, delivers services to countries in the Mediterranean and Gulf region, he added. "

A worrying tactic. And of course a logistically difficult strategy for anything less than a nation-state... and I worry about the retaliation that may follow.

Take a look at these pieces from the political/Buddhist musings on Mahablog. Interesting perspectives on US and the world generally. These specifically grabbed me.

First is on how politicians (in the US race in this example, but generally) try to offer a false sense of certitude - and how this ties in with Xtianfuckwittery. This goes so well with my continuing rants and thoughts on 'purity/perfection' as another dangerously misleading idea.

The other is linked to a study of the post-Cold-war nuclear proliferation problem - and the odd fact that only GW Bush had the audacity to tackle the problem on the right kind of scale. By doing the exact wrong thing, needless to say - but at least the proportion was right.

Jamais Cascio thinks scary thoughts:

"I am increasingly convinced that, whether we like it or not, geoengineering is going to become a leading arena of environmental research and development in the coming decade.

This is not because geoengineering -- the intentional large-scale manipulation of geophysical systems in order to change the climate and/or environment -- is the best way to deal with global warming. It's most decidedly not. The more we examine the initial proposals, in fact, the more we find that the risks outweigh the benefits. While we can't rule out a breakthrough discovery making this strategy safer, for now, its only environmental value appears to be as a desperate, last-ditch effort to head off catastrophe. Nonetheless, for many nations, this last-ditch possibility would be enough to warrant further research.

But as the observation at the top of the page suggests, geoengineering could be seen as having another kind of value: as a tool of international power...

...Geoengineering as a military strategy would appear to offer a variety of benefits. Research can be done out in the open, taking advantage of civilian work on anti-global warming geoengineering ideas. If my argument that nuclear weapons and open-source warfare have made conventional warfare essentially obsolete is correct, climate-based warfare would offer an alternative non-nuclear weapon, one that would be out of the reach of non-state actors. And the more we learn about how human activities alter the climate -- in order to alter those activities -- the more options might open up for intentionally harmful manipulation.

But wait: if global warming and climate disruption are, well, global, wouldn't "harmful manipulation" hurt the manipulating country, too?

Not necessarily -- or, at least, not to the same degree. The effects of global warming can vary dramatically, depending upon local geography and economy. Weather effects like hurricanes and heat waves depend on regional preconditions. The resilience of local technological and social infrastructures will also prove critical for determining how well regions handle climate disruption. For many of these reasons, many specialists worry that the regions hit the hardest by global warming will be in the developing world."

I have no deep understanding of the Pakistani political and tribal situation, so I'll not make bold predictions and such. Besides thinking that this is when Cluster meets Fuck in the region.

I do offer this point from Rude Pundit (who goes on to note the different ways Presidential election candidates used her death for their gain. He is not gentle about this.):

'1. If Pervez Musharraf didn't know about it ahead of time, then he's the worst kind of dictator, the kind who doesn't actually control his country.
2. If he did know about it, even if he simply let it happen, then he's the regular kind of dictator.
3. Either way, Pakistan's screwed, with nukes in the middle of the screwing and the Bush administration somewhere between active incompetence and blithe enabling in this situation, which means, as ever, we're screwed. '

I will note how quickly the al-Qaeda link to the hit appeared and the still-unconfirmed cause of death as interesting oddities.

The American Flag Mustang.

"Saleen has found a way to pay tribute to our troops serving in our military by creating a special edition Mustang dubbed the American Flag Patriot Edition. Saleen will produce 24 of the special edition Mustangs with 8 in each color of red, white and blue. Someone has already posted one up for sale on Ebay here with a buy it now price of just over $51,000."

Yup - a gas-guzzling sports car, painted to vaguely resemble Ol' Glory, to show they support the troops dying for the oil to run the fucking things.

USA. All the way. Oo-rah. Etc.

Take it away, Keith:

" We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War Three about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole — or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked — at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so — whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed, were still even remotely plausible.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency: an unapologetic war-monger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself."

Then he gets nasty...

From John Shirley's Signs of Witness:

' Israel has tightened security at its airports, seaports and border crossings—increasing both technological surveillance as well as information gathering efforts —in order to thwart attempts at smuggling radioactive materials into the country. These materials could potentially be used in the production of a “dirty bomb” that could be detonated within Israel.

A “dirty bomb”, which is essentially a low grade nuclear weapon, is far less lethal than an atomic bomb, but can still lead to massive casualties and injuries should it be employed. It basically consists of an ordinary explosive “laced” with radioactive materials. When detonated, these nuclear materials then emit dangerous levels of radiation, which can quickly spread across a rather large area. As previously noted, Israel is growing increasingly vigilant of a possible ‘dirty bomb’ attack. Supervision at seaports is at an all time high, and new detectors have been put in place to identify nuclear materials hidden in containers and freight cargo.

Moreover, heightened security has been instituted at sensitive sites, such at the nuclear waste site in southern Israel, (emphasis mine) in order to prevent theft and smuggling of radioactive materials.

The United States instituted similar heightened security measures at its borders crossings and sea ports several months ago, following repeated security alerts. Radiation detection devices were placed along major access points into Manhattan, including bridges and tunnels. '

Consider this - both Israel and US are nuclear powers (even if the former won't admit it). Border restrictions won't stop fissionables and other hot metals already within their borders.

This sounds a lot like a warm-up to something bad. Hope I'm wrong.

' Bush told Pakistan's president on Wednesday that he must hold parliamentary elections and step down as army leader.

"You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time," Bush said, describing a telephone call with Gen. Pervez Musharraf. "I had a very frank discussion with him." '

Yep. The President and Commander in Chief of the United States Military actually said that. Not exactly a shock that he's so clueless and arrogant, but still worth a macabre chuckle.

(If you don't know what a systempunkt is, go read John Robb for a while, m'kay?)

' A major power outage in Auburn Friday morning brought many businesses to a standstill, including the Journal.

"We sat down and we ate until it came back on," said Jodie Luckett, owner of Cheryl's Clothes Closet on Palm Avenue. "We had a calculator and were still able to let people shop."

Power was cut to 6,752 Auburn-area customers at 8:45 a.m. Friday and restored by 11 a.m., said Jennifer Ramp, spokeswoman for PG&E.

"We had a squirrel that got into our Placer substation (on Blocker Drive) and caused the outage," Ramp said.

Luckett said she planned to take the dark moments as an opportunity to catch up on other business.

"I couldn't go on eBay and couldn't go to the post office, they were closed too," she said. "We are too reliant on electricity." '

' The South African National Defence Force "is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday."

...The weapon, a ED-209 Oerlikon GDF-005, is designed to use passive and active radar, as well as laser range finders, to lock on to "high-speed, low-flying aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and cruise missiles." In "automatic mode," the weapon feeds targeting data from the fire control unit straight to the pair of 35mm guns, and reloads on its own when its emptied its magazine. '

It's that time of year again... Bernard Weiner gives us his annual update on the deep background of the Forever War world:

"Each year around the anniversary of 9/11, I summarize what we ordinary citizens have learned since that awful day in 2001. This is the sixth annual look backwards, an update based on new information about those horrific events and what followed.

What we now more fully understand is how the CheneyBush Administration utilized the murderous terrorism of 9/11 as the one-size-fits-all justification for their unfolding domestic and foreign agenda.

By and large, one can sum up that overall agenda as: Amass and control power in the U.S. and much of the world, and, in cahoots with their corporate supporters, loot the treasury. All this was to be carried out secretly, with no accountability..."

Plus, as lagniappe... Slacktivist on PNAC's hubris (and theme song).

Next time some idiot whines about "but think of the children...", point them to this piece by Bill Lind:
(For that matter, anyone who thinks the Iraq 'war' is either under control or winnable in any way by US interests should read this, and Lind in general.)

"As we have seen in Africa, when children become fighters at an early age, they provide a pool of men who for at least a generation cannot do anything but fight. It is difficult to "de-program" them into peaceful citizens. In turn, this leads to what we might call "supply-side war," war driven largely by the presence of men who want to fight. This kind of half-war, half-brigandage swarmed over Europe during the interval between the end of the Middle Ages and the rise of the state. After Westphalia, the state put an end to it by rounding up the brigands and hanging them. In Iraq, where the fictional state cannot even round up kilowatts, supply-side war suggests that disorder will be rampant, and a state non-existent, for quite some time."

(From Global Guerrillas)

Bernard Weiner at Smirking Chimp covering one of the scarier aspects of the US version of Public-Private Partnerships:

"In short, CheneyBush have created what amounts to their own private legions -- soldiers, intelligence analysts, security guards, construction experts, supply specialists, et al. -- in effect, a "mercenary" force bought and paid for by the American taxpayer.

That's why there will probably be no draft: There is no guarantee of loyalty from those dragooned into service. Besides, many draftees have politically-connected constituencies. But when one's mercenary "volunteer" forces are totally beholden to the paymaster for their livelihood and under-the-table payoffs, they will dance with them that brung 'em.

These are no small numbers. It's estimated that in addition to the 160,000 regular troops in the field in Iraq, CheneyBush control anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 private assets ("independent contractors"). Nobody's even sure under what "rules of engagement" these guys -- many in security and reconstruction fields -- operate, or whether they are accountable to anyone other than their corporate bosses' and the financial "bottom line."

History shows us the dangers involved when leaders have large extra-institutional forces at their command, such as the Praetorian Guards and Legions of ancient Roman Caesars, Hitler's Brownshirts, Saddam's Republican Guards, the private militias of political and religious leaders today in Iraq, Blackwater forces in control of New Orleans after Katrina, etc. By and large, these mercenaries swear allegiance to their employer, not to the rule of law, not to any constitution. The catastrophic damage done to democracy by the existence, and power, of these private forces can't be over-stated.

News flash: Blackwater, the huge corporation that CheneyBush rely on for most of the non-military functions in Iraq and elsewhere, is buying combat aircraft..."

Just to show I'm an equal opportunity commenter on the idiocy of certain People of the Book...

' An influential former chief rabbi of Israel has caused controversy by saying its soldiers fall in action because they do not observe Jewish law.

Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the orthodox Jewish party Shas, said God helped soldiers when they "believe and pray" and they did not get killed.
The remarks, in a sermon broadcast in Israel, have been sharply criticised in secular circles and by veterans groups.
Many of the 112 soldiers killed in last year's Lebanon were observant Jews.

Rabbi Yosef has often been at the centre of controversy for comments in his weekly sermons, which are known for their ultra-conservative content.
"Is it any wonder if, heaven forbid, soldiers are killed in a war?" Rabbi Yosef said in the recording of his weekly Saturday night sermon broadcast on Monday.
"They don't observe the Sabbath, they don't observe the Torah, they don't pray, they don't put on phylacteries every day. Is it any wonder that they're killed? It's no wonder. May the Almighty have mercy on them and bring them back to religion." '

I now have this image of a Kabbalistic version of the Ghost Dance ritual... and note just how effective that was.