JOS, Nigeria (AFP) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Washington led calls for restraint on Monday after the slaughter of more than 500 Christians in Nigeria, as survivors told how the killers chopped down their victims.
Funerals took place for victims of the three-hour orgy of violence on Sunday in three Christian villages close to the northern city of Jos, blamed on members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.
While troops were deployed to the villages to prevent new attacks, security forces detained 95 suspects but faced bitter criticism over how the killers were able to go on the rampage at a time when a curfew was meant to be in force.
Media reported that Muslim residents of the villages in Plateau state had been warned by phone text message, two days prior to the attack, so they could make good their escape before the exit points were sealed off.
Survivors said the attackers were able to separate the Fulanis from members of the rival Berom group by chanting ‘nagge’, the Fulani word for cattle. Those who failed to respond in the same language were hacked to death.
One local paper said the gangs shouted Allah Akhbar (God is Great) before breaking into homes and setting them alight in the early hours of Sunday. Churches were among the buildings that were burned down.
The Vatican led a wave of outrage with spokesman Federico Lombardi expressing the Roman Catholic Church’s “sadness” at the “horrible acts of violence”…
…”People were attacked with axes, daggers and cutlasses — many of them children, the aged and pregnant women.”
Picture three or four images that sum up the Pacific War for you. The Zero has to be there. It’s really as Japanese as the Samurai or trippy role playing fantasy games. It was even built by Mitsubishi.
A6M Zero, a gorgeous, delicately nimble, flying incendiary death trap
A gorgeous plane in many ways, with very clean lines and well proportioned, there’s plenty to admire in the Zero. It had very good speed, exceptionally long range (longer than anything America could field until second generation planes with external fuel tanks), low stall speed (very large wing area), stability, and incredible maneuverability. Exceptionally lightweight, the Zero had a good climb rate and, at low speeds, was a better dogfighter than possibly any other plane of WW II. It’s diminutive cousin built for the Japanese Army, the Ki 43 “Oscar,” was perhaps even more maneuverable, though underpowered and woefully underarmed. One American pilot described an Oscar pull off acrobatic feats normally seen only at airshows: three Immelman’s (from the straight and level, pulling into a half loop then rolling level, to gain altitude and change direction all at once) in a row followed by a “Hammerhead Stall” (pulling straight up into a stall, then kicking the nose down into a dive).
The Zero, along with many of Japan’s most commonly fielded aircraft, suffered from weaknesses that allied pilots would eventually learn to exploit. Most famously, it had absolutely no survivability if damaged. There was no armor plating, and the primary fuel tank was just beneath the cockpit, and was not self-sealing (a mixture of charcoal and rubber lining that congealed to stop leaks, standard on allied aircraft). Very light damage would usually set the plane on fire. The trade off, light weight, maneuverability and long range, also gave the Zero poor dive capabilities (as odd as that sounds, it proved crucial).
The Zero’s characteristics reflected Japanese design philosophy and pilot culture. Japanese prototypes were fielded tested almost exclusively by front line pilots, who had effective veto power over whether a design would be accepted for production. A joy to fly, pilots loved the Zero’s handling and maneuverability, and didn’t want the plane weighed down by extra armor (pilots always want more maneuverability, even though, as outlined later, dogfighting capability is decidedly not the final word in air combat). First used in China as a bomber escort, the Zero proved perfectly suited for dealing with ancient Chinese biplanes (supplied by Russia and the U.S.) with poor armament. Oddly, the Japanese never seem to have seriously considered the necessity of bomber interception as an important role for the Zero. Against American bombers heavily armed and armored, the Zero’s fragility and light armament was at a disadvantage.
In addition, while no major power considered developing fighters as ground attack aircraft before the war, allied planes proved excellent in a tactical bomber role. The Zero proved adequate against exposed ground forces as a strafer, but was not up to the challenge of withstanding heavy anti-aircraft fire.
At first, the Zero was a terrifying surprise for allied pilots who didn’t think Japan had much of a modern air force. The Zero made it’s reputation almost instantly, as it savaged opponents left and right for the first six months of the war.
Furthermore, the thousand or Japanese naval pilots at the outset flying the Zero were some of the best in the world. Japan spent years training pilots in the run-up to the war, and accepted a very small number of applicants. Most had well over six hundred hours in type, and they were well trained in doctrine, proving superb at bomber escort and carrier warfare. Japanese pilots cut their teeth over China, slaughtering Chinese air force. Like the Germans in Spain, the Japanese received combat experience before WW II kicked off for real. However, while Germany learned mostly the correct lessons from her Spanish adventure, Japan picked up a few bad habits (see above).
In contrast, allied forces were mostly under-manned, inadequately trained, and unprepared. Rag tag collections of American units in the Philippines, Wake, and Guam, and British and Anzac units in Hong Kong, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, and New Guinea were caught off guard and overwhelmed by Japanese offensives, which brilliantly utilized economy of force (e.g. the eighty or so American fighters on the Philippines faced more than double that number of Japanese forces, with tactical surprise to boot).
That initial disparity in force structure is the biggest single reason the Zero built up such a fantastic reputation, one which it coasted on thereafter. That reputation has in large part covered over most of the Zero’s crippling weaknesses, along with the later advent of second generation American aircraft which ended up being some of the best piston engined fighters of all time. But what happened in between? Continue reading »
The institutional narrative of WW II in the Pacific runs like this: Japan surprises the allies and romps at will across the Pacific. America gets lucky and turns the tables at Midway. America’s industry kicks into gear and starts building more and better of everything imaginable. Japan’s defeat is inevitable even though they fought like hell for every piece of coral reef in the Pacific. Game over.
Yeah, I’m back on the military history kick, go ahead and groan.
This subject is worth delving into a bit for a couple of reasons, because that narrative isn’t quite accurate; it’s been obscured by the reputation Japan made at the outset when she enjoyed strategic surprise and economy of force, and the reputation America made at the end of the war. But it’s not simply a matter of correcting the record. The true story is darned useful for highlighting the fundamental Japanese weaknesses and contrasting American strengths that won the war. And it’s another lesson in American and Western military history, in the VDH/John Keegan/Archer Jones tradition. Military forces are bound by cultural and traditional traits far more often than we realize.
Eric M. Bergerud’s Fire in the sky: The Air War in the South Pacific has really cut into my sleep recently. At seven hundred pages and proceeding in detail on a topical basis, it’s a lovely blend of good scholarship and readability. And I’m having vicarious flashbacks to childhood, reacquainting myself with the Japanese Zero, F4F Wildcat, Kenney’s 5th Air Force, Guadalcanal, and Rabaul. If you keep reading, you’ll know what those words mean, probably in more detail than you really desired.
But don’t you want to know what skip bombing is? It’s as cool as it sounds. Everything from why the P-40 deserves more credit than it’s been given, to how to use a P-38 Lightning as beer cooler, it’s all here. Continue reading »
The muses would not visit Lyle
He was frustrated, quite full of bile
The painting was crass
Lacking polish and class
It would neither amuse nor beguile
He picked up an old ceiling tile
And smashed at the canvas a while
He threw it away
And the very next day
It was saved from the old garbage pile
A wealthy art patron named Pyle
Now praises this daring new style
It hangs in the Kimball
A sign and a symbol
Of what makes the art muses smile
A quick late night expurgitation. In pursuance of my previous post on the costume party for a friend, there was an unsettling occurrence in preparation, and I feel morally compelled for the public weal to air this aggrieved sentiment.
No less than two people informed me that I should attend this “Presidents Day Party” in the visage of “Ol’ Hickory” himself, King Andrew Jackson the First.
Two people! And both are characters whose normal sober opinion I value, respect, and trust. What possessed them to propound such an opinion escapes me. Or have I lost my senses?
While granting all merit to Willy Horton’s classic ballad on the Battle of New Orleans and Andrew Jackson’s status as a heroic American General, I had always assumed that his exploits upon the Mississippi were rather overshadowed by his legacy as a President, one of demeaning coarseness in American politics, demagoguery, and the Trail of Tears. On the list of Presidents one would willingly impersonate, Jackson should certainly be in the bottom third.
As Minstrel Boy once told me, “the only good thing Andrew Jackson did was get rid of the Federal bank, and that was probably only because he personally hated banks.” I will grant that Jackson’s actions opened the vastly under-appreciated free-banking era (perhaps Minstrel Boy could write on this topic sometime), but other than that, what’s to his credit?
A titan by name of Prometheus
Stole fire from Olympus in Greetheus
By Jove, that was bad
It made the gods mad
He ought to, at least, have said pleatheus
Prometheus gave us the flame
And mankind would not be the same
The spark of that gift
Was a titanic lift
And we’ve all but forgotten his name
(N.B. Please understand that I base the following conlusions on the above premises. I do not mean to be alarmist; rather, this post is meant as a reflection on this man’s vision of the future. It is an unlikely development, but then so are the perfect circles of 1984 or Brave New World – they are illustrative and instructive rather than literally prophetic. So I mean this post to be.)
Essentially what this fellow is saying is, through the use of games and networks, that mass behavior will be trainable. The training will be ubiquitous, and we will, therefore, drown in it. Governments, factions, corporations, and anyone who has the money, will be able to propagandize entire populations. These groups will set cultural norms, mores, and beliefs. However, you can almost guarantee that whatever they want to program in will be according to whatever asinine theory of human behavior and politics is popular at the time. Once done, it cannot be undone – unless there are those of the population who refuse to accept the programming. (Conjecture can lead us to some scary consequences of rejecting the new culture, but this is neither the time, nor the place, and it would be, in the end, mere supposition based on a supposition.)
Do we really want a God-like state, that has as close to omnipotence as is humanly possible? And, do we really want to aid and abet that state by providing the very information which will serve as the chains to the new slavery? It is especially dangerous, this new slavery, because it will be enforced by carrots rather than sticks – more game points, tax breaks, etc. And because market research hardwired into their products, they will know what we like. Freedom will be replaced by superficial choice, and no one will notice because to us freedom will be preference. (Imagine fighting virtual wars over whether Coke or Pepsi is better.)
The problem with mass communication is that it is geared towards the lowest common denominator. I do not mean that it lowers our proverbial collective intelligence – though it does – but rather that the lowest common denominator is still not low enough to appeal to everyone. (In fact, the LCD is itself repulsive to some.) Instead, now, with endless choices recorded, mass communication will no longer be purely mass – it will be personalized communication to a mass. Each message aimed at a person’s known preferences, and so the mass message – do this or that – will be tailored in such a way as to make one person think he is choosing what is best for him, but is really the same choice everyone else is making, just with different window dressing.
Propaganda, according to Jacques Ellul, must have the following distinctive characteristics to be effective. It must be ubiquitous. It must be full spectrum, that is, be communicated from every available source. It must be constant. It must be convincing. It must be geared towards provoking action. In what way does what this man describes differ from these characterizations?
Once they know everything about us, and once, with a flick of the switch, they can control our behavior, what’s to stop those in power from hijacking the system? Why should we trust those with absolute power to behave altruistically? Eventually, there will be someone with the intelligence and ambition – the tyrannical man (or men, as the case may be) – to take control of the system. (And since we are all plugged into the virtual cave, no one would really notice or care.) At that point, peace, freedom, and humanity qua humanity is finished. We will be automatons, programmed by communication, subject to his will.
Networks are only independent if not controlled from above, yet this man’s theories marry networks to hierarchal structures for the worst of both worlds. Those in the network will hate those without. Once in the network, behavior will be self-reinforcing and mutually reinforcing – when you act “correctly” you will be rewarded, and so be more likely to behave that way again; when someone see you act that way, and get rewarded, they will also want to act that way. What is “correct”? Whatever those divvying up the rewards decide it to be. And once everyone is dancing to the same tune – except those at the very top who decide what “correct” is, because, as Ellul says, a propagandist cannot believe his own propaganda – society and human existence become masturbatory.
There is a reason that the founding fathers opted for decentralization and separation of powers – namely that only in decentralization can we be assured of human autonomy, freedom, and choice. Not only decentralization of the state, but of the person from the government. However, this does this opposite, centralizing human experience to be directed and synonymous to the state and corporations bringing about the closest thing to a hive possible for reasonable beings.
At the end he says that having our entire lives known will make us want to live better lives. We will want to lead good lives, but at that point, will we even know what that means? In the midst of the reprogramming, will we have forgotten what it means to be human?
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