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Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez 

The Rise of Rome by Anthony Everitt 

Just picked these up from two authors I very much like, though sadly, Everitt’s Hadrian also sits in my antilibrary waiting to be read. My normally manic reading pace took a major hit this past year due to my being ridiculously overscheduled and admittedly, underdisciplined, but I am hoping to cure that this fall. Despite an academic foundation in US-Soviet diplomatic history and economic history, I find myself frequently gravitating to classical antiquity these days. Everitt’s biography  Cicero was a masterpiece that overshadowed his sequel, Augustus. What I would like to see Anthony Everitt do, were I able to give him advice, is to write  a biography of the indomitiable  Cato the Younger, whom Everitt blamed most of all for the death of the Roman Republic.

I rarely have time for fiction anymore, but Daniel Suarez is on my very short list of authors next to Stephen Pressfield and William Gibson. Shlok did a nice review of Kill Decision here at ZP and at his own blog. As qa result I am kicking Kill Decision to the top of my book pile.

 

[ by Charles Cameron — when religious leaders talk of wiping nations off the map ]
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-Two bearded religious figures face of with what seems like parallel but opposite rhetoric:

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The Ayatollah Khamenei, left, is the Supreme Jurisprudent of Iran — not merely a senior cleric but Iran’s final authority. Rabbi Ovaida Yosef, right, is the leader of the Shas movement in Israel and a cleric who swings enough power that Prime Ninister Netanyahu consults him and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, briefs him — an influence, then, something akin to an eminence grise perhaps, but by no means the final authority.

You may, loathe one of them you may loathe both of them: I doubt there are many people who admire both. But I’m not here to stir your animosities, I’m here to see what we can learn from comparing and contrasting them by catching them in similar circumstances. Perhaps it will make their differences stand out in high relief — perhaps it will reinforce their similarities.

The two men are both religious clerics, both political players, both getting on in years, both grey-bearded — and both seem to be comfortable using the same rhetoric at this point.

My aim here is to learn from this juxtaposition.

*

So I have two sorts of questions that I’d like to explore here, calmly and with appropriate documentation if you please…

One sort of question probes the differences in position and pouvoir of the two men:

Who has the higher position? Whose side has the most potent weapons? Whose side started this — or is that a moot question?

The second sort is subtler, since it has to do with motives hidden in the hearts and minds of men — and with the differences that sometimes exist between between rhetoric and intent.

Is is an entire people, or simply a regime that they would like to see an end to?

Is either one of them bluffing?

And of course my own favorite: is either one of them, the rabbi or the ayatollah, saying what he’s saying because of an “end times” (Messianic or Mahdist) expectation?

**

Hitler‘s rhetoric in Mein Kampf was pretty clear, and the actions of his Dritte Reich did not belie his rhetoric. Considerable planning was involved, there was documentation.

What, beyond rhetoric, do we know about Israeli planning to take down the Iranian nuclear program? What, beyond rhetoric, do we know about Iranian planing to respond to an Israeli strike — or to defeat and destroy Israel more generally?

Do the logistics back the rhetoric up?

What happens when the word “fire” is itself a match? What happens in an echo chamber, in a hall of mirrors?

[ by Charles Cameron — attempting the unbiased exploration of nuance in often low-nuance discourses ]
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As usual, billboards, pamplets and ads on the sides of buses are worth watching. Let’s start with the Shariah twins:

The similarities are pretty obvious — what are the differences?

Well, the upper one was put up first, while the lower one was a response to it — that’s one difference, and it accounts for the similarities. Another difference has to do with the URLs each of them provides for further inquiry:

http://www.defendingreligiousfreedom.org
http://www.defendingreligiousfreedom.us

Again, the second is a response to the first and mimics its URL, although it switches automagically to http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/leave-islam/ when you click through. And “defending religious freedom” is clearly a double-sided coin…

The actual situation is neither that “Islam is a religion of Peace” nor that “Islam is a religion of War” — I would suggest it is that Islam is a religion that believes in opposing injustice in the name of peace, for the sake of eventual peace. In this regard, Islam is not unique.

Islam also has adherents who would like to see the entire world under Islam’s banner. In this again, Islam is not unique. Islam has given the world great poetry, history, architecture, philosophy, music, mathematics, science. Again, Islam is not unique in this. In one of my own fields of special interest, social entrepreneurship, Islam has given use Muhammad Yunnus and the Grameen Bank… The Islamic world also includes many religious leaders who espouse virulent anti-Semitism. In short…

Islam as expressed for better or worse in a vast diversity of human lives and situations neither renders each and every adherent an angel nor a beast. God may be perfect, but Muslims are only human. In this again, Muslims are not unique.

**

Let’s turn from religion to patriotism:

According to the lower image, the Tea Party is not the enemy. That’s fine by me — I have friends who are Tea Party stalwarts. According to the upper image, which was put up by a local Tea Party related organization using the Tea Party name, the sitting President of the US is the equivalent of Hitler and Stalin. And if they weren’t seen as enemies by the US, I don’t know what the Second World War and Cold War were all about…

So let’s just say that when Obama‘s death camps pass the five million mark in Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, poets, Christians or whoever killed, I will no longer think the comparison a trifle overheated. To put it mildly.

But hey, I have a question for the Oath Keepers among our readership.

If you are supposed to fire on the enemy, and the illustration in your ad specifically features British red-coats, but you’re not allowed to fire on American citizens, and Col. Kevin Benson, who wrote the disputed article in Small Wars Journal, is an American citizen whom you consider a “red-coat” — are you supposed to shoot him? Please note, I also have friends who are SWJ stalwarts.

What about droning Anwar al-Awlaki? I suppose these paradoxes of double identity all belong in the same category as Bertrand Russell‘s celebrated paradox of the Spanish barber:

There was once a barber. Some say that he lived in Seville. Wherever he lived, all of the men in this town either shaved themselves or were shaved by the barber. And the barber only shaved the men who did not shave themselves.

All of which is fine, until you begin to wonder, as Russell did, whether the barber shaves himself?

**

Back to religion (jihad) — or are we still on politics (Israel)? — for a quick look at the San Francisco Muni advertising discourse, which has now reached the point where I need to amend my usual two panel format:

Pamela Geller paid for the first ad, which encourages US support for Israel, okay, but also seems to call some group or other “savages” — we’re not quite sure who that group consists of since she doesn’t specify it — but she could plausibly be meaning all Palestinian suicide bombers, all Palestinians, all Arabs, all Muslims, even perhaps all those who support Israel… we just don’t know.

Given the amount of hatred floating around on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, I’d suggest the ad is indeed inflammatory, and that the Muni — who didn’t think they could refuse it under applicable US law — was acting appropriately if somewhat surprisingly in posting its own ad in response, seen here in the middle panel.

Now Geller has announced her intention to respond to the Muni’s ad with one of her own, seen here in the third panel — and all eyes will be on Muni if and when she does — to see if they will continue the back and forth.

**

The world is the cinema. There actually are people setting fires in several parts of the cinema, and others whose words could be the sparks that ignite yet more fires. Some of the fire-setters have names like Ajmal Kasab and Osama bin Laden, some like Timothy McVeigh or Anders Breivik, some like Vellupillai Prabhakaran. The theater is crowded, and some people are yelling “fire”…

Furthermore, there’s a difference between panic and precaution.

[ by Charles Cameron — Anonymous use of sound clips from movies ]
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Taste in movies varies. As the Hollywood Reporter reported just the other day:

Orson Welles‘ Citizen Kane no longer enjoys the moniker of greatest film of all time, a plaudit it has held for 50 years. The movie has occupied top billing in the British Film Institute-published magazine Sight & Sound‘s once-a-decade international critics’ film poll since 1962. But that crown, according to Sight & Sound‘s 2012 survey of 846 movie experts who participate, has now passed to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

I thought it might be interesting to look at the recently released Anonymous YouTube video encouraging people to do whatever it is they do — “only you know what is right for yourself” — at the Republican National Convention.

To see where their taste in movies takes us.

I’ll include a few screen shots and some of their own techno-voice commentary, but it’s only the borrowed clips I’m really after — taking a look at what they choose to quote, what they leave out, and where there may be questionable truths or conflicting assertions.

**

Their opening line is:

Greetings, world. We are Anonymous.

Then, over some chest-thumping music, one of those rotating globe thingies that let’s you know what’s coming next is Important — the Onion has a good one — resolves into the Anonymous question mark logo:

A techno-voice speaks:

We are not terrorists, but are your greatest allies. We wish to liberate you from suppression and oppression, and no matter how many of us fall in battle, Anonymous cannot be defeated. We are Anonymous, we are legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget. Expect us.

Then, in white text over some groovy graphics:

Each of us has our own path but each of us share the same goal… a free Humanity. Together we stand…

The groovy graphics then add a small inset frame from Tonight, on CNN Presents, very cool:

The clip has some neat journo-thrilled-to-be-important-speak:

Anonymous — they live in the shadows.

an (anonymous) quote:

This is the closest thing to a global revolution that we have ever gotten.

and more journo-thrill:

But their message and tactics have ignited a movement around the world.

We then cut, after some thunder-like sounds, to a mechanical nodding and smiling anonymask speaking in techno-voice:

We are the ideology of truth , we are uncompromising, we are the most powerful underground resistance the world has ever seen. We were once a minority but now we are the majority. No matter how hard they try they cannot stop us now.

It’s right around here that things get filmic.

We have Al Pacino as Tony D’Amato in Any given Sunday, voice over:

We’re in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And, we can stay here, get the ** kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell… one inch at a time.

More of the mech-nodding techno-voice:

We all are angry, very very angry…

Which segues nicely into Peter Finch as Howard Beale in Paddy Chayevsky‘s Network saying, over images of one guy jumping on the roof of a cop car and others smashing the windows:

I want you to get mad! … First you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!’ … I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’

Classic!

More inspirational movie sound clips follow in voice over.

There’s Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in Rocky Balboa:

But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth then go out and get what you’re worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits,

Vince Lombardi — I’m not sure where this one comes from, a newsreel perhaps?

I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious

Winston Churchill — yes, the late military historian and Conservative Prime Minister of the undaunted British, addressing the boys of Harrow (a private school roughly equivalent to Phillips Academy or Groton in the US):

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

— spoken with true British upper-class schoolboy fortitude!

Then we go back back to Anonymous’ own text, noting that “main stream news media”:

have labeled us all as domestic terrorists. We are here to tell the public to not be afraid of Anonymous, to not be afraid of Black Block or [techno-mumble] Block. Our aim is not to cause violence to the public. We are no danger at all to American citizens. The people of america need to know we are on their side. We fight for true freedom, we take a stand for the hungry, the poor, the suffering citizens of this country, who are sick of politicians doing what they please at our expense.

The only difference between us and protesters of the past is that we believe in fighting for our rights. We indeed are not pacifistic: if the oppressors fight us we will fight back ten-fold. … Do not believe the lies your government feeds you. Instead, join us at RNC and take a stand with us. United by one, divided by zero.

Okay, that’s the invitation. And then, whoosh back into an American (I suppose you might say) equivalent to the Churchill news clip — this one from MLK, complete with the original visual:

I have a dream, that one day this nation will rise up..

Another classic! But we’ll talk about that a bit later.

Next up, over video of cops in riot gear, we have Will Smith as Christopher Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness:

Don’t ever let somebody tell you… You can’t do something. [ … ] You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it. Period.

And Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks in Miracle, over an image of the streets aflame:

Great moments, are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here, tonight.

Okay, we’re coming to the close. The music shifts to some semi-classical piano, and the nodding technanonymity says a few words… then, over some tranquil shots of the globe we live on…

Billy Bob Thornton as Coach Gaines in Friday Night Lights tells us:

Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn’t let them down, because you told them the truth. And that truth is that you did everything that you could. There wasn’t one more thing that you could’ve done.

Can you live in that moment, as best you can, with clear eyes and love in your heart? With joy in your heart?

Fade…

**

Okay, we got — what? American football, boxing, hockey, a Conservative politician, a non-violent Civil Rights leader, a salesman-entrepreneur, lots of police and rioting, no military that I could detect, unless you count Churchill’s speech…

Funnily enough, V for Vendetta (image at the top of the post) isn’t among the movies they’ve clipped from, although the Anonymous mask is a Vendetta Guy Fawkes mask.

Interesting that in the quote from Network, after the words “I want you to get mad!” and before “first you’ve got to get mad” they’ve omitted the words:

I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot…

Funny that in quoting Any Given Sunday, they chose a version that has “shit” bleeped out of the soundtrack, so Pacino says:

We’re in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And, we can stay here, get the ** kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light…

Funny that they say:

The only difference between us and protesters of the past is that we believe in fighting for our rights. We indeed are not pacifistic: if the oppressors fight us we will fight back ten-fold.

and then quote Martin Luther King Jr, the Gandhian practitioner of satyagraha…

Funny that they say, “now we are the majority” and a little later, “we can not win this fight alone”.

Ooh! And that’s a great (math) line at the end, though I don’t know quite what it means:

United by one, divided by zero.

**

I’m more of a Gandhian, pacifistic, lay down on my back and let them roll over me, foolish school myself — and I don’t watch many sports movies, so I wasn’t the ideal target audience here.

The Martin Luther King speech might just take my “best documentary” award. And I’m with the critics on Vertigo.

**

Look, you close with the question:

Can you live in that moment, as best you can, with clear eyes and love in your heart? With joy in your heart?

While you are “very, very angry”? I don’t know, I’m inclined to doubt it. But I’m pretty sure that if, as you claim, you “don’t forgive” you can’t.

That’s just not the way “love in your heart” works.

[ by Charles Cameron — meeting the opposite extremes in Norway ]
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When opposite tweets crop up back to back, it can catch your eye.

These two, from analyst (and one time Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews in Scotland) Magnus Ranstorp caught my eye today — describing as they do one Norwegian jihadist and one Norwegian crusader…

Bingo! As I suggested in an earlier post today, at times you can glimpse the close proximity of opposite ends of a spectrum…

**

Juxtaposition: it’s an eye-opener.