Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Tag: war

John Mearsheimer

18.08.2023 /

Mr. Mearsheimer, who is a prominent expert on international relations, cf. Britannica, has been relatively uncommunicative since 2022, after the war he had warned about ever since 2014, started. Maybe he did not want to tell us “I told you so”. Or was his case perhaps one of not being allowed to tell us?

Like Jeffrey Sachs, Patrick Lawrence, Chris Hedges and other noted independent journalists, he has been forced to turn to the alternative media.

Here I merely wish to direct your attention to the Aaron Maté of the Greyzone’s interview with him on July 30 2023: The interview bears the title
“John Mearsheimer: Ukraine war is a long-term danger“.

John Mearsheimer was right in 2014. He was right in early 2022. I think he may be right now. So I think we should listen to him. (There is a transcript of the text under the video link.)

La semana trágica

12.07.2023 /

No language can compete with Spanish when it comes to heartbreaking titles (surely you will admit that “The tragic week” isn’t up to much).

There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of tragic weeks scattered throughout the pages of history, even (or rather, not least) recent history, yet my search engine only returns results from Argentina (1919) and Spain (1909) although my search string was “tragic week” (yes, in English).

I am not going to write about Argentina’s La semana trágica, because I am more interested in another aspect of Argentinian history, the extermination of the Mapuche on the Argentinian side of the cordillera. There have been many tragic weeks for the Mapuche, not – I repeat – not 500 years ago, but towards the end of the nineteenth century, a time when most of the “civilised” world was seeing the light of humanitarianism. Alas, not so in the elevated circles of Buenos Aries. To this day a twang of haughtiness can clearly be detected in that repeatedly bankrupt metropolis.

As Pedro Cayuqueo writes in his fascinating Historia secreta mapuche: “The Argentinians, they keep saying even to this very day, are all grandchildren of gringos or Europeans”.

The Encyclopedia Britannica’s short article about the Mapuche doesn’t even mention the Argentinian extermination campaign, referred to in Wikipedia as the “conquest of the desert“. “Desert” is a misnomer, by the way, as the Pampas and Patagonia were extremely fertile, which was why they were so coveted. Still are.

No, for the moment, I am looking at Spain’s Semana trágica. Like any self-respecting tragedy, it had a prelude, an overture, as it were, one that is 300 years long – far too long. So I shall just take a cut of it, a pars pro toto: Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, who was assassinated (understandibly, if you ask me) by an anarchist in 1897. He had been passionately opposed to universal suffrage, which would, he feared, favour socialism. He served six terms as prime minister of Spain under weak Bourbon sovereigns. I quote Wikipedia:

The policies of repression and political manipulation that Cánovas made a cornerstone of his government helped foster the nationalist movements in both Catalonia and the Basque provinces and set the stage for labour unrest during the first two decades of the 20th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_C%C3%A1novas_del_Castillo as on 10 July 2023

I add, for the record, that the expression “labour unrest” in the above quote is a euphemism, if ever there was one. The violence was volcanic.

During a religious procession in 1896, in Barcelona, a bomb was thrown. Immediately three hundred men and women were arrested. Some were Anarchists, but the majority were trade unionists and Socialists. They were thrown into the notorious prison at the fortress of Montjuïc in Barcelona and tortured. After a number had been killed, or had gone insane, their cases were taken up by the liberal press of Europe, resulting in the release of a few survivors. Reputedly it was Cánovas del Castillo who ordered the torture, including the burning of the victims’ flesh, the crushing of their bones, and the cutting out of their tongues. Similar acts of brutality and barbarism had occurred during his regime in Cuba, and Canovas remained deaf to the appeals and protests of civilized conscience.

ibid

So much for the overture. Now for the actual semana tragica:

In 1909, the Spanish government sent troops of reservists over the sea to fight against Moroccans. The Spanish government, “the Crown”, considered Morocco its property – and had always considered peasants its property to do with as it saw fit. The problem was that a) Moroccans were not appreciative of Spanish ownership and that b) 520 of the peasants had already completed active duty six years earlier. Besides, they had families who depended on them.

Mind you, Morocco was a meat grinder for the Spanish malnourished, poorly armed and untrained soldiers. In 1859, 4000 Spanish soldiers had perished there, and 1893 had seen more military disasters because, of course, Moroccans fiercely defended their land. As would you and I.

A number of pious ladies saw the conscripts off from several harbours in Cataluña, handing out medallions of the Holy Mother and whatnot, but the conscripts were stony-faced as they boarded the ships. Their wives, however, were not. They were furious. How were they supposed to feed their children when their husbands were carted off? At the time, only prostitutes were allowed to work.

In 1909, once the half-starving conscripts had landed in Morocco – I am quoting Wikipedia:

a series of skirmishes over the following weeks cost the Spanish over a thousand casualties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rif_War as on 11 July 2023

Meanwhile, all Hell broke loose in Barcelona. The “tragic week”. To sum it up, there was a riot, the outcome of which was, to quote Wikipedia:

Police and army casualties were 8 dead and 124 wounded, while 104 to 150 civilians were reportedly killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_Week_(Spain) ason 11 July 2023

That’s it! That was the tragic week, the 8 dead law enforcers, and the 104 to150 civilians. Not the “over a thousand casualties” in Morocco.

You would have thought that the Spanish Crown learnt a lesson in 1909, but Spain was adamant. Spanish peasants were bled again and again in Morocco. In 1921 Spain “sufferered anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 deaths” according to Encyclopedia Britannica. A commission was set up to investigate the debacle. “The report that resulted—the Expediente Picasso—was damning. It highlighted negligible military leadership, poor troop morale and training, problematic frontline logistics shoddy equipment, and the generally pitiable state of Spain’s colonial army.”

Still, the Spanish Crown failed to learn. Quoting Encyclopedia Britannica again:

The Rif War balance sheet was striking. Official Spanish casualty figures published in the late 1920s put losses at approximately 43,500 troops killed, missing, or wounded. Moreover, estimates put Spanish war-related expenses at 3.2 billion pesetas (more than $540 million), an astronomical figure given the size of Spain’s economy at the time.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Rif-War/Expansion-and-escalation

Mind you, the poor bastards dying in Morocco were not the “owners” of Morocco. The owners were all enjoying the good life back in Spain. Neither they nor their sons or grandsons had to serve in the meat grinder. They merely paid a coin or two to a couple of their peasants to replace them.

Homo sapiens has changed, of course – thank goodness! We are good, now, democratic, just, and above all, fair. Oh, and I forgot: honest.

Hubris

13.10.2022 /

In 1809, Napoleon’s troops surrounded Vienna, bombarded the city for 24 hours or so, until it surrendered. By then, the local aristocracy, of which there was more than enough to go around, had long driven off in their splendid equipages to go and visit aristocratic relatives in other duchies, princedoms and kingdoms, whereas the dismayed populace had to pretend, after Vienna’s defeat, to celebrate Napoleon’s birthday.

The history of war is full of miscalculations, luck, hubris, coincidence and, above all cynicism. Writers, poets, gamers and innumerable nameless mostly men study past wars as though war were a fascinating sport; advances here, retreats there, trenches, camaraderie, the grisly life-changing sight of a comrade’s death, and the look in the eyes of an enemy soldier before you kill him. War enthusiasts glorify “brilliant generals” such as Caesar, Hannibal and Napoleon, who all had at least one thing in common: They did not balk at committing genocide, real genocide, not the kind of genocide that Mr Putin has referred to, but the kind that the US has contributed to on several occasions.

In 1809, during Napoleon’s bombardment of Vienna, the composer Beethoven, who by then had become a Viennese superstar, lay screaming in his bed with a pillow over his head. As you may know, Napoleon had disappointed Beethoven, who was in many ways a revolutionary. Not only was his music revolutionary, but his temper and pride were so exceptional that dukes and princes cringed before him, a mere composer, a poor man. “Prince, ” he wrote to Prince Karl von Lichnowsky at whom he had attempted to throw a chair, “what you are, you are through chance and birth; what I am, I am through my own labour. There are many princes and there will continue to be thousands more, but there is only one Beethoven.” That is hubris.

Hubris is not an adjective; nevertheless it is used as an epithet, an unflattering one. Beethoven’s hubris may have been unattractive – apparently, he was a rather horrid person – but it killed nobody, and his music is, for those of us who like that sort of thing, no less than transcendental.

The hubris of Napoleon is of a difference order. He was truly a liberal reformer. Most importantly, his seeds of reform to jurisprudence have survived to this day in all liberal democracies. He reformed education, introduced the metric system, allowed religious freedom, stimulated the arts, etc., etc. But the Viennese would have none of him.

The Spaniards would have none of him either, or of his brother. Now Spain at that time has sometimes been described as the “Tibet of Europe”. The socio-political progress embodied in the renaissance, which subsequently rippled through country after country, had not penetrated Spain. Most Spaniards were so suppressed, so desperately poor and exploited that they rejected the reforms offered by Napoleon’s brother. They must have thought: “He offers us longer life expectancy; we certainly don’t want that. Our only chance of getting out of this living hell is to starve to death.” (The Catholic Church prohibited suicide under pain of perpetual damnation. You can imagine what a catch-22 that was for the average Spanish peasant!)

Spanish peasants heroically defended their horrible king, i.e. their right to die of starvation.

Psychologists agree about one thing: Never tell the patient what to do, because the patient may then want to do the exact opposite. Dictators tell their people what to do, what to think, even.

Mind you, some dictators are visionary and maybe even wise when they are still young, e.g. Mugabe, but as they age, they tend to turn into monsters. We all know that, except dictators of course.

There are other ways of making people do what you want them to, as any reasonably honest psychologist will tell you. For decades, US American voters have politely declined longer life expectancy, just like the Spanish peasant back in the beginning of the nineteenth century. For decades the US has had – and still has – all of western Europe dancing to its tune of Marche Funebre.

Now, of course, things are starting to unravel even in the USA. What, I ask myself, will my grandchildren – assuming they survive the inevitable ecological collapse – tell their children about USA?

Meanwhile, time is running out: We are following the Pied Piper, marching full speed from the frying pan and into the fire (e.g. forest fires, due to which climate gas emissions are soaring, causing more forest fires…,etc.) cf. “Less is More”.

More than bombs

24.08.2022 /

War is more than collapsed buildings, deaths, and lots of people maimed for life. It is also paralysed infrastructure. We have just seen the beginning of the war with Russia. We have not seen the end of it.

As I write tonight, I find myself without internet. The internet service provider assures me that the break is due to a ruptured cable. That may well be the case, but what is also the case is that it could have been caused by Russia. Russia might yet decide to create havoc on our electrical grid, our water mains, etc. After all, war is war, and we (Europe) are in it, contributing in a big way to its perpetuation.

So we may all wake up one day to find that we have no Internet, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Google… That would be scary! But what if we have no water? In much of Europe, water is coming to an end due to droughts and heat waves. What if it disappeared altogether?

Russia has made it clear that they do not want to precipitate a nuclear disaster. Nor do “we”, obviously. But disasters do happen. And there are other forms of disasters that most of us lack the imagination to envisage. Such disasters are truly disastrous – not least for the allegedly innocent party.

Are we an innocent party? You might be interested in what Jeffrey D. Sachs has to say about that.

Yesterday, I spoke with compatriots who complained: “We were used to differences being sorted out with diplomacy and dialogue, and suddenly Russia attacks us!”. Was that really what happened? Did “we” (NATO/EU), prior to this war, really try to sort out differences with Russia with dialogue?

After the war started, did “we” belatedly try to halt its progress, settle differences?

In countries at war, dissidence is not tolerated. In Russia, individuals openly expressing opposition to the war are being arrested. In my country this is not yet the case, since no dissident voices are heard at all. Hence dissidence represents no threat to the powers that be. On the contrary: Support for NATO has never been greater in this country. I am tempted to maintain that the propaganda machine is more effective in Norway than in Russia

That, Mr Putin, is something you should consider. You may win the war in Ukraine, you will probably see Europe reduced to indigence, but you will be facing the hatred of Europeans.

Does Mr Putin care? Do we care? Alas, war turns us into primitives.

This business of guns …

11.07.2022 /

During the seventies, feminists maintained that if women had power, there would be no wars. Women, feminists claimed, know that food on the table is more important than guns. After all, we can’t eat corpses. Back then, of course, many women spent most of their lives cooking, cleaning and looking after children. But now, with so many women in power – women who never even have to boil a potato and who delegate the care of their children to underpaid strangers – it would seem that women are no better.

Mind you, I’m all for women’s equal rights. Unequivocally so! It’s just that – well, women are no better, that’s all. Look at von der Leyen and Nancy Pelosi, hawks of the first order. Nancy Pelosi, for one, should know that the greatest threats to USA are not the Chinese nor the Russians, but domestic problems. Serious domestic problems. She knows! But she is bluffing, hoping to keep the Democratic Party morale up against all odds.

Domestic problems, yes, and the global climate crisis, which is still just nibbling away at the edges of human existence, not least in the continent we all initially came from, Africa; but it will come roaring over us, all of us, including the Chinese and the Russians unless we get our acts together. We’ve had foretastes in the shape of forest fires, floods, droughts, hurricanes, cyclones, mass migrations, power outages… – but in the end, we’ll know all of the above and more, at once and everywhere. You don’t believe me? Not my problem, really, because I’ll be gone soon, and I’m not religious, so if the human species doesn’t survive, that won’t bother me much. I will point out, however, in case you have forgotten, that even today, long after Freud, denialism is still considered a serious obstacle to rational problem solving.

To be frank, it is my problem, too, because I really hate seeing people suffer. Also in the US, people are suffering and have been suffering for decades. Decades! And your politicians haven’t done a thing about it, too busy defending the neoliberal economic order and, more recently, too obsessed with the idea of recovering the country’s irreversibly lost hegemony. The Biden administration’s proposed fiscal budget for 2023 includes spending USD 813 BILLION on “defence and national security”, but apparently both houses of Congress will demand to spend more (yes, more not less!). USD 813 billion is more than was spent on “defence and national security” during any year of the Korean and Vietnam wars, and more than what is spent by China and Russia and the 7 next top military spenders combined.

More than half of what US Americans paid to the military last year, about $2,000 per taxpayer, according to an analysis by the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies…..will have gone to giant weapons contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, along with thousands of smaller arms-making firms.

People in Europe are also suffering now, and will suffer more because of this stupid war of attrition against Russia. And of course Ukraine is suffering terribly, having been tricked into waging a war it cannot win. Mind you, Russia is not – repeat NOT – suffering. The sanctions on Russian gas and fertilisers and wheat, etc. are bringing Europe (but not Russia) to its knees. That will not – repeat NOT – benefit USA, because who will buy products from the US when Europe’s purchasing power has been reduced to pennies? There will still be Australians, of course.

USA has its holier than the Bible+Talmud+Koran so-called constitutional amendments. The defence of these “amendments” is reminiscent of religious fundamentalists’ vindication of “laws” imposed many centuries ago, laws that might have made sense at the time when they were adopted, but that are completely out-of-time and out-of-place today, in short downright nefarious.

Guns! Good heavens, how ludicrous! How pathetic! Above all, how sick! Frankly I prefer an honest hurricane, which at least reminds survivors that we – women and men – are not omnipotent.

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