He Shook Some (Moon) Dust Out Of His Tin Foil Hat

Just to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen. Bill Richardson demonstrated rather clearly that he is not ready for prime time - not that there was any question that he ever was. Yesterday, he landed firmly on the side of the mother of all conspiracy theories. If elected, Richardson will get to the bottom of the Roswell Incident.

ROUND ROCK, Texas — If he wins his bid for the White House, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson may be just the man to get to the bottom of the 60-year-old Roswell UFO mystery.

Answering questions at a townhall meeting Friday, a Dell employee asked Richardson about the 1947 incident in which many people still believe a flying saucer landed near the eastern New Mexico town.

"I've been in government a long time, I've been in the cabinet, I've been in the Congress and I've always felt that the government doesn't tell the truth as much as it should on a lot of issues," said Richardson, who is governor of New Mexico.

"When I was in Congress I said (to the) Department of Defense … 'What is the data? What is the data you have?' "

He was told that the records were classified.

"That ticked me off," he said, as the crowd laughed.

"What do you want me to do? You want me to open up all those files?" he asked the alien enthusiast, who answered that he did.

"I'll work with you on that."

Roswell has become a Mecca for conspiracy theorists in the years since a July 8, 1947, press release sent from Roswell Army Air Base disclosed the recovery of "a flying disk" at a ranch near Roswell.

You go, Billy! Just what the government of the United States needs, a full-blown conspiracy theorist in the Oval Office. Ron Paul would be proud! He's only working the smaller conspiracy theory of the 9/11 troofers. You're going for the mother lode. Have fun at the autopsy, Billy.

UPDATE: Others: Jules Crittenden, Outside The Beltway, QandO, Eunomia, Weasel Zippers, Pirate's Cove, Oxford Medievalist,

Forgotten War

I grew up when the history that was taught in this country by the schools was fairly well centered on American history. I knew that World War Two was fought by troops from many nations, both on the Allied Side and on the Axis side. Aside from the British, Russian and French soldiers (with a small mention for the Canadians) little else was taught. But there were others. Australians, for example, fought a long and bitter campaign in the jungles of New Guinea (now known as Papua New Guinea). At one point, they were the only Allied land forces anywhere in the Pacific Theater who were on offense. The soldiers of Kanga Force have largely been forgotten - even by their own historians. Never more than 400 in number - often half that due to casualties and sickness - they tied down Japanese forces and sent invaluable information back to Port Moresby.

It was on November 2, 1942, that we recaptured the Kokoda government station from the Japanese enemy. The devoted courage and resourcefulness of our young soldiers along that sad pathway amply justifies the choice of Kokoda as an emblem, though there was much other heroic fighting in New Guinea, and other tracks of crucial importance.

Who has heard of the Bulldog Track? Yet it was one of the most extraordinary lines of communication in modern military history. The official war historian tells us that the Australian Army never undertook a more ambitious project, "through one of the most difficult and unpleasant areas ever to confront troops".

As one of the few people who have trudged the full length of both tracks, I remember Bulldog as longer, higher, steeper, wetter, colder and rougher than Kokoda, though it did not involve the savage hand-to-hand fighting of the latter.

For the fit and intrepid, both tracks in 1942 offered a route from the south coast of New Guinea, over the towering central mountain ranges and down to the sea on the northern side. Kokoda began at Port Moresby and ended at the Solomon Sea. Bulldog, 240km west of Moresby, began at the mouth of the great Lakekamu River and led north to the beaches of the Bismarck Sea, with its islands of Manus, New Britain and New Ireland.

The purpose of Bulldog Track was to supply and sustain a tiny Australian guerilla force operating in the jungles and mountains behind the formidable enemy bases and airfields at Lae and Salamaua. These had been established after massive Japanese landings in March 1942. Enemy fighter and bomber aircraft ranged easily to our main base at Port Moresby, which suffered more than 100 air raids.

On the ground Australia had only the ridiculous little "army" of Kanga Force: 400 men at most, and often fewer than half that, as malaria, malnutrition and wounds ground them down. And yet, perhaps less ridiculous than its mere numbers might suggest: for example, by moonlight on June 28-29, 1942, they stealthily entered Japanese-occupied Salamaua town and virtually wrecked it, leaving 100 enemy dead, at a cost of three men lightly wounded. For six months on end, Australia's Kanga Force were the only Allied troops conducting offensive operations against the Japanese in General Douglas MacArthur's vast Southwest Pacific Area.

Peter Ryan wrote that piece for The Australian. It's worth a read. (More about Kanga Force here.)

Moose Dip

Johansfors, Sweden has a new attraction: the moose pool. A local moose went for a dip in the pool, triggering a huge rescue operation.

The moose was discovered in the swimming pool in the small community of Johansfors, some 500km south-west of Stockholm.

The discovery triggered a sizeable rescue operation. Initially the pool was emptied to reduce the risk of hypothermia.

Local emergency services then tried to build a ramp for the moose to climb out of the drained pool bottom, but that failed.

After spending the night there, the moose was tranquillised by a local hunter, the online edition of the Hallands Nyheter newspaper reported.

The emergency services then used a fork-lift truck to hoist the animal weighing several hundred kilos out of the pool.

Mind you, they got her out just in time for the annual moose hunting season, which is already underway.

Defending The Indefensible

With a 60-year old firetruck, gear they purchased with their own personal funds and considerably more guts than brains, the volunteers of the Holy Jim Fire Department are waiting to fight the Santiago fire in California if it comes into Holy Jim Canyon. The Forest Service has told them that they are on their own and that nobody will be coming to help them if the fire reaches them. But they won't leave unless they are losing the fight.

Deep in the Cleveland National Forest, down 4 1/2 miles of rocky road in a canyon surrounded by sheer walls and choked with dry brush and trees, Mike, George, Tom, Dave, Big John and Gertrude are prepared to confront Orange County's Santiago fire.

The men are members of the Holy Jim Fire Department, about 20 volunteers in one of the most remote outposts fighting one of the worst Southern California wildfires. Gertrude is a 1947 pumper that earlier this week was in better condition than their other engine, which is only 30 years old.

The crew in Holy Jim Canyon is made up of mostly hikers and mountain bikers in their 40s and 50s who fell in love with the area's rugged beauty but who live elsewhere. With so many fronts in the fire battle, they're fully aware the cavalry may not be coming.

"There are primary fronts, secondary fronts, tertiary fronts — and then there's us," said firefighter Rourke Oakland, 48. "There's indefensible space. We're undefendable."

The Santiago fire has stalked the canyon all week. On Friday, flames chewed up the backcountry less than two miles away. A shift in wind threatened to overrun the community of 49 wood-and-rock cabins built in the 1920s on Forest Service land to expose city folk to the wonders of nature.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the fire danger in Holy Jim Canyon clocks in at about 20. Its narrow topography gives it the characteristics of a chimney. "Any fire that started here would come racing down this canyon at 50 mph," said firefighter George Willis.

They have an evacuation plan ready should it be needed. But they're trying to save a quirky little area that's irreplaceable. Best of luck, folks.

You Can’t Get Blood From A Stone

But the socialist genius who rules Zimbabwe believed you could get refined diesel fuel from a rock. And they paid a "spirit medium" who conjured the fuel five billion Zimbabwean dollars for the magic rock.

When Nomatter Tagarira, a spirit medium, claimed that she could conjure refined diesel out of a rock by striking it with her staff, ministers in Robert Mugabe’s Government believed that they might have found the solution to Zimbabwe’s perennial fuel shortage.

After witnessing her apparently miraculous gift they gave her five billion Zimbabwean dollars in cash (worth £1.7 million at the start of the year but now worth one seven-hundredth of that) in return for the fuel. Ms Tagarira was also given a farm, said to have been seized from its white owner during Mr Mugabe’s lawless land grab, as well as food and services that included a round-the-clock armed guard on the rock in the district of Chinhoyi 60 miles (100km) from Harare, the capital.

More than a year later officials realised they had been duped. Ms Tagarira is now in custody, awaiting trial on charges of fraud or, alternatively, of being “a criminal nuisance”. Details from court papers published this week said that over 15 months, until July this year, Ms Tagarira convinced Cabinet ministers, ruling party heavy-weights and top army and police officers that by striking the rock with her staff she could produce enough fuel to supply the country for 100 years.

The money was paid after a high-level task force of ranking officials and members of the security services investigated and proclaimed the rock to be the real deal. And it was the real deal - sort of. A hidden fuel tank delivered the oil when the spirit medium made a signal with her stick.

Well, I'm off to Harare to sell my perpetual motion machine. I think I'll ask for gold, though. A pile of Zimbabwean dollars worth about 30 cents in US currency occupies the same approximate volume as Giant's Stadium.

Just As Problematic

“To me, ignoring religion in general is just as problematic as endorsing any one religion.”

Those are the words of Rabbi Yitzhak Miller discussing a ban by the National Cemetery Administration of the words spoken during the Flag Folding ceremony at funerals in National Cemeteries. The volunteer honor guards have recited what each of the thirteen folds of the flag represents as they fold the flag that draped the coffin for the last time. But the NCA says they are not permitted to do so any longer. Because, apparently, one person lodged a complaint.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Flag-folding recitations by Memorial Honor Detail volunteers are now banned at the nation’s 125 veterans graveyards because of a complaint about the ceremony at Riverside National Cemetery.

During thousands of military burials, the volunteers have folded the American flag 13 times and recited the significance of every fold to survivors.

The first fold represents life, the second a belief in eternal life, and so on.

The complaint revolved around the narration in the 11th fold, which celebrates Jewish war veterans and “glorifies the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.”

The National Cemetery Administration then decided to ban the entire recital at all national cemeteries. Details of the complaint weren’t disclosed.

Administration spokesman Mike Nacincik said the new policy outlined in a Sept. 27 memorandum is aimed at creating uniform services throughout the military graveyard system.

He said the 13-fold recital is not part of the U.S. Flag Code and is not government-approved.

The words can be found here. Veteran's organizations are furious. Many plan on defying the ban outright. I have mentioned before that my family name is highly unusual and that all of us are descended from a single ancestor as a result of a misspelling on an official record. I checked this morning while I was thinking about how to post about this. There are more than 80 people from my family buried in National Cemeteries. There are seven more buried overseas in cemeteries administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission.

My own father is buried in the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California.

And I cannot begin to explain how this ban makes me feel. Could it be so hard to simply ask the families if the flag folding words should or should not be recited? Is it so very difficult? If the establishment clause is meant to keep government from imposing one religion, why is imposing a secular religion acceptable?

Biofuel = Crime Against Humanity?

So says Jean Ziegler of the United Nations who serves as the UN independent expert on the right to food. No, really he said that. Biofuel production is a crime against humanity - in those exact words.

The use of crops for biofuel has being pursued especially in Brazil and the United States.

Last March, President Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an agreement committing their countries to boosting ethanol production. They said increasing use of alternative fuels would lead to more jobs, a cleaner environment and greater independence from the whims of the oil market.

Ziegler called their motives legitimate, but said that "the effect of transforming hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tons of maize, of wheat, of beans, of palm oil, into agricultural fuel is absolutely catastrophic for the hungry people."

The world price of wheat doubled in one year and the price of corn quadrupled, leaving poor countries, especially in Africa, unable to pay for the imported food needed to feed their people, he said. And poor people in those countries are unable to pay the soaring prices for the food that does come in, he added.

"So it's a crime against humanity" to devote agricultural land to biofuel production, Ziegler said a news conference. "What has to be stopped is … the growing catastrophe of the massacre (by) hunger in the world," he said.

As an example, he said, it takes 510 pounds of corn to produce 13 gallons of ethanol. That much corn could feed a child in Zambia or Mexico for a year, he said.

Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said the Bush administration didn't consider biofuel development a threat to the poor.

"It's clear we have a commitment to the development of biofuels," he said. "It's also clear that we are committed to combatting poverty and supporting economic development around the world as the leading contributor of overseas development assistance in the world."

Longtime readers know that I think biofuel production is wasteful and will lead to starvation. But the continual reduction of standards of what constitutes a "crime against humanity" is counterproductive. It will inevitably lead to exactly the kind of pushback that Chang did. It is a fact that US Aid has cut back on the amount of food it purchases because of the high cost of food. It is a fact that biofuel production is actually counter-productive in the effort to cut carbon emissions.

Incidentally, the reporter's assertion that biofuel from food is mostly the US and Brazil is false. China and India are both doing the same thing and are being warned that their water resources are at severe risk.

Avoiding War With Iran

The San Antonio Express-News editorial board gets it. They understand the purpose of real sanctions against Iran. They see that the only way to discourage Iran from proceeding with their nuclear weapons ambitions is to make those ambitions too costly.

The desire to acquire nuclear weapons is uniform among the Iranian leadership. No matter what label they carry — conservative, moderate, reformist — they view nuclear armaments as symbols of national prestige that preserve the revolutionary regime and extend Iranian power in the region.

But as Dennis Ross, a Middle East expert who worked in the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, observed in a recent meeting with the Express-News Editorial Board, not everyone among the Iranian elite is prepared to pay any price to possess them. Even the ayatollahs sometimes have to make their ideology conform to reality. Such would be the case if the economic costs of developing nuclear weapons actually undermine the prestige and power they are intended to preserve.

Ross criticized the slow pace of diplomatic efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear weapons program. The U.N. Security Council, he observed, has passed two sanctions resolutions in the past year.

"The problem is they don't touch the economy. They don't deal with credit guarantees, investment, the banking system. They don't deal with any of that," he noted.

Because the new, unilateral sanctions imposed by the US government will hit not only the 25 named individual entities but also foreign banks and businesses that do business with those 25 entities, they can put real economic pressure on Tehran. If other nations also follow suit, the costs to Iran will become unacceptable and they will be forced to reconsider their nuclear ambitions. This is the only meaningful diplomatic pressure that stands a chance of working. Bravo to the SAEN editorial board for getting that.

Meanwhile, Michael Hirsh, writing at Newsweek, shows he doesn't get it at all.

Last weekend I met a happy hard-liner, a senior White House official, at a Washington party. His good mood, it turns out, had a lot to do with the new, uncompromising stance laid out by his boss, George W. Bush, against Iran. Until recently administration hawks had been somewhat worried about where their president was headed. Since the beginning of his second term, in their view, Bush had gone suspiciously soft on the question of how to stop Iran's nuclear program. He had acceded to Condoleezza Rice's demands that the United States back the multilateral diplomatic approach favored by the Europeans. But in the last two weeks the administration has been on a unilateralist tear against Iran once again, issuing hawkish rhetoric that far outpaces anything heard in European capitals. On Thursday the White House announced a broad array of sanctions that affect almost the entire Iranian government. Tehran, meanwhile, has hardened its own position considerably.

The end result of all this may be war, whether anyone really wants it or not.

The end result of doing nothing will be a nuclear armed Iran. They have made it abundantly clear that if they get the bomb, they intend to use the bomb - to wipe Israel off the map. Short of war, the only credible weapon the US has are the economic sanctions that do real damage to the power and prestige of Tehran.

It is real sanctions or war. It really is that simple.

A Decidedly Incongruous Job

Mark Lasswell, writing in the Opinion Journal, notes that returning war veterans often find themselves in incongruous jobs after their recent experiences on a battlefield. He writes about one such man, Marcus Luttrell, the only survivor of the four man Navy SEAL team commanded by Lieutenant Michael Murphy who received the Medal of Honor posthumously on Monday. (Post with video here.) For the past five months Mr. Luttrell has been an unpaid publicist for the team members he lost in Afghanistan. The book Luttrell wrote about that day has become a best seller. And every dime the book has made is going into a trust to aid the families of the dead soldiers and other military charities.

War veterans returning to civilian life commonly find themselves in jobs that are, in light of their recent battlefield experience, decidedly incongruous. For Mr. Luttrell, coming home after his discharge in June has meant an incongruity of a kind he would never have imagined. The former SEAL–a man with special-operations training in marksmanship and underwater demolition, a recipient of the Navy Cross for combat heroism, a warrior who fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan–has been working for the past five months as a publicist. It is strictly a volunteer position and reluctantly undertaken, to be sure, and Mr. Luttrell has only one client: the memory of that terrible day in Afghanistan. He wants the world to know about the sacrifices of Lt. Murphy, of his two other dead SEAL teammates, and of the eight SEALs and eight Army Night Stalkers killed in the failed helicopter rescue. It is a timely effort, coming during a period in this country when the heroism of American soldiers is not reliably noted, much less honored, in every corner.

"It's not about me, it's about my guys," he says of his publicity labors since leaving the service. "It's like the job I was doing before I got out. There were probably plenty of missions that I didn't want to go on because I was tired or whatever, but I still did it. Because it's not about me."

Mr. Luttrell was born in Houston in 1975 but grew up in rural Texas on the horse farms his family owned, much of the time in the piney-woods country in the eastern part of the state. He would clearly rather do just about anything than talk to the media. At 6 feet 5 inches tall and well over 200 pounds, with long, cowboyish sideburns, he is Texas taciturn to begin with, and the secrecy of SEAL missions tends to make frogmen–as the naval Sea, Air, Land team-members call themselves–a less-than-loquacious bunch.

In the months following the mountain fight, queries from family and friends about the gun battle and debriefings following inaccurate news reports on the incident became such a distraction, Mr. Luttrell says, that it was difficult to concentrate on his SEAL duties.

"Normally I wouldn't talk about any of our operations. This one wouldn't leave me alone," he says. "It kept banging on my door and I had to do something about it." The solution, he thought, would be to set the facts down in print so that they would be on the public record. Then maybe he could move on.

With clearance from his superiors, Mr. Luttrell began looking into writing a book and was eventually put in touch with British writer Patrick Robinson, whose military thrillers often involve the U.S. Navy. Their collaboration, "Lone Survivor," was published in June; it quickly became a nonfiction best seller.

There is a better description of the battle than the dry formal Medal of Honor citation contained in the article as well. Marcus Luttrell may have taken on an incongruous job, but it is an honorable and a necessary one. Not enough has been written or told about the bravery of our soldiers. Thank you for your service, Mr. Luttrell, both in the wars and back here at home.

The Banality Of Evil

The man who took the photographs of those who were destined to die at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia will testify against the man who commanded that slice of hell on earth. When Kaing Geuk Eav, also known as Duch, goes on trial for crimes against humanity, prison photographer Nhem En will take the stand against him. Nhem En photographed each of the estimated 14,000 people who either died at the prison or were sent from there to the Killing Fields.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, Oct. 25 — He had a job to do, and he did it supremely well, under threat of death, within earshot of screams of torture: methodically photographing Khmer Rouge prisoners and producing a haunting collection of mug shots that has become the visual symbol of Cambodia’s mass killings.

“I’m just a photographer; I don’t know anything,” he said he told the newly arrived prisoners as he removed their blindfolds and adjusted the angles of their heads. But he knew, as they did not, that every one of them would be killed.

“I had my job, and I had to take care of my job,” he said in a recent interview. “Each of us had our own responsibilities. I wasn’t allowed to speak with prisoners.”

That was three decades ago, when the photographer, Nhem En, now 47, was on the staff of Tuol Sleng prison, the most notorious torture house of the Khmer Rouge regime, which caused the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979.

This week he was called to be a witness at a coming trial of Khmer Rouge leaders, including his commandant at the prison, Kaing Geuk Eav, known as Duch, who has been arrested and charged with crimes against humanity.

The trial is still months away, but prosecutors are interviewing witnesses, reviewing tens of thousands of pages of documents and making arrests.

Not long ago, John Kerry denied that there had been any genocide when America abandoned South Vietnam to its fate. That was his way of arguing that the US could precipitously withdraw from Iraq. Perhaps he was just parsing the words. After all, the killing wasn't just about one particular racial group. Duch simply killed everyone sent to him. Nhem En has gone on to prosper as a government functionary under the new regime, his days of photgraphing the soon-to-be-dead of Tuol Sleng prison long over. Those now waiting trial after all these years, meanwhile, will have new toilets installed in their cells.

Three more leaders were expected to be arrested in the coming weeks: the urbane former Khmer Rouge head of state, Khieu Samphan, along with the former foreign minister, Ieng Sary, and his wife and fellow central committee member, Ieng Thirith.

All will benefit from the caprice of Mr. Nuon Chea, who complained that the squat toilet in his cell was hurting his ailing knees and was given a sit-down toilet.

Similar toilets are being installed in the other cells, said a tribunal spokesman, Reach Sambath, “So they will all enjoy high-standard toilets when they come.”

How very nice. Earlier posts here, here and here.)