MEDIA ROOTS — In John Cusack’s 2008 movie, War, Inc., an outrageous pop star, singing and dancing, is situated in the middle of all this chaos and criminogenic environment, addled with occupying corporations, zealous military forces, and war-torn absurdity.   Giving real-life meaning to the War, Inc. pop star, real-life pop star Katy Perry seems to be fearlessly treading the boundaries of mindless military propaganda.  Or is Katy Perry innocently just havin’ a good time?

In Katy Perry’s dramatic new video for her corporate record label—the same label Radiohead is on, by the way—Capitol under EMI under Citigroup—her character has an epiphany when she sees a bumper sticker on a bulletin board:

“All women are created equal
But then some become Marines”

I suppose any artist daring enough to flirt with military imagery must either be an incredibly courageous artistic genius or a misguided tool.  If numbers say anything, Katy Perry’s “Part of Me” video already has over 39 million views.  But, clearly, that military joke isn’t funny anymore.  And Naomi Wolf, who has done her fair share of dirt on behalf of women’s rights and human rights, wasn’t laughing either.  Even boycotts are being called against Katy Perry. 

“When you shine in the public eye, my dear
Please remember these nights…”

Messina

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READER SUPPORTED — Who knew that an opinion about pop music video could get Fox News so worked up? Recently, I wrote that I was appalled by Katy Perry’s new video for the No 1 hit song, “Part of Me”. In it, the narrative has the singer discover a boyfriend’s infidelity; she responds to this by cutting her hair and – heading for basic training to become a Marine.

The creepy parts of the video, in my mind, are many: girl power is represented as what Perry accomplishes in the rigors of basic training. Feminine impulses toward romantic revenge are depicted as rightly channeled into getting armed and being shipped to some mystery Afghanistan-like set overseas, locked and loaded. Trade in your bad boyfriend for a hot AK-47!

The whole videography of the scenes at Camp Pendleton – in which Perry crawls through an imaginary minefield, trains underwater, learns she can do the impossible, etc – is straight out of Leni Riefenstahl: the same angled, heroizing upward shots, the same fetishization of physical power, of gleaming armaments, and of the rigor and mechanism of human beings cohering into living militarized units.

There is something else about the video: it feels … like an ad; specifically, a focus-grouped, consumer-tested ad to attract more women to join the Marines. Real artistic productions, whether bad or good, are messier, quirkier, more subjective. I am familiar with the way political ads get researched and filmed (it was part of what I advised on in my time as a political consultant), and this looks like a political ad put together by DC PR insiders – like, say, the Pentagon communications team – after expensive market research has been done. In political advertising, every single image and message is focus group tested. I would bet that someone did some research on the hypothetical of a marriage or relationship breakup as a catalyst for women’s military enlistment, given an economy in which the military offers low-income women some of the few options for advancement in a context in which a breadwinner may have decamped.

So I wrote that I felt that this was a piece of “war propaganda” and that, if Perry had received money or message guidance directly from the military to make the video, she should disclose that information. It might be inferred from the fact that she filmed at the USMC’s California base, Camp Pendleton, that this would have contributed at least several tens of thousand of dollars in support – in the form of free sets, use of equipment, personnel time and, possibly, food and housing; it takes a lot of people a fair amount of time to make such a video. Now, to be fair, while journalists are expected to disclose any such conflicts, I have absolutely no evidence of any such transaction, and artists are subject to no such expectation. (Albeit, this would be a subsidy that you, the taxpayer, have underwritten.)

Read more about Katy Perry and the Military-Pop-Cultural Complex.

© 2012 Reader Supported News

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Katy Perry — Part of Me

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Tool — Part of Me

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Photo by Flickr user machechyp 

MEDIA ROOTS — When you’re Julian Assange, you just can’t do right.  The USA’s establishment has got it in for him now.  Doubtless, they’d like to grab him like Bradley Manning.  Assange says he’ll be called a traitor for interviewing radicals.  Journalist Glenn Greenwald says the attacks on Assange and RT reveal as much about the critics:

“The real cause of American media hostility toward RT is the same as what causes it to hate Assange: the reporting it does reflects poorly on the U.S. Government, the ultimate sin in the eyes of our ‘adversarial’ press corps.”

“In other words, like Assange, [at RT] they engage in real adversarial journalism with regard to American political power. And they are thus scorned and ridiculed by those who pretend to do that but never actually do.”

Messina

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SALON — A new news show hosted by Julian Assange debuted yesterday on RT, the global media outlet funded by the Russian government and carried by several of America’s largest cable providers. His first show was devoted to an interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (video below), who has not given a television interview since 2006. The combination of Assange and a Russian-owned TV network has triggered a predictable wave of snide, smug attacks from American media figures, attacks that found their purest expression in this New York Times review yesterday of Assange’s new program by Alessandra Stanly.

Much is revealed by these media attacks on Assange and RT — not about Assange or RT but about their media critics. We yet again find, for instance, the revealing paradox that nothing prompts media scorn more than bringing about unauthorized transparency for the U.S. government. As a result, it’s worth examining a few passages from Stanley’s analysis. It begins this way:

“When Anderson Cooper began a syndicated talk show, his first guest was the grieving father of Amy Winehouse.”

“Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, unveiled a new talk show on Tuesday with his own version of a sensational get: the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.”

That contrast — between one of America’s Most Serious Journalists and Assange — speaks volumes already about who is interested in actual journalism and who is not. Then we have this, a trite little point, impressed by its own cleverness, found at the center of almost all of these sneering pieces on Assange’s new program:

“Mr. Assange says the theme of his half-hour show on RT is ‘the world tomorrow.’ But there is something almost atavistic about the outlet he chose. RT, first known as Russia Today, is an English-language news network created by the Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin in 2005 to promote the Kremlin line abroad. (It also broadcasts in Spanish and Arabic.) It’s like the Voice of America, only with more money and a zesty anti-American slant. A few correspondents can sound at times like Boris and Natasha of ‘Rocky & Bullwinkle’ fame. Basically, it’s an improbable platform for a man who poses as a radical left-wing whistleblower and free-speech frondeur battling the superpowers that be.”

Let’s examine the unstated premises at work here. There is apparently a rule that says it’s perfectly OK for a journalist to work for a media outlet owned and controlled by a weapons manufacturer (GE/NBC/MSNBC), or by the U.S. and British governments (BBC/Stars & Stripes/Voice of America), or by Rupert Murdoch and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal (Wall St. Journal/Fox News), or by a banking corporation with long-standing ties to right-wing governments (Politico), or by for-profit corporations whose profits depend upon staying in the good graces of the U.S. government (Kaplan/The Washington Post), or by loyalists to one of the two major political parties (National Review/TPM/countless others), but it’s an intrinsic violation of journalistic integrity to work for a media outlet owned by the Russian government. Where did that rule come from?

Also, while it’s certainly true that the coverage of RT is at times overly deferential to the Russian government, that media outlet never mindlessly disseminated government propaganda to help to start a falsehood-fueled devastating war, the way that Alessandra Stanley’s employer (along with most leading American media outlets) did. When it comes to destruction brought about by uncritical media fealty to government propaganda, RT — as the Russia expert Mark Adomanis documented when American media figures began attacking RT  – is far behind virtually all of the corporate employers of its American media critics.

Read more about Attacks on RT and Assange reveal much about the critics.

© 2012 Salon Media Group, Inc.

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Julian Assange’s The World Tomorrow: Hassan Nasrallah (E1)

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RT – Assange ‘traitor,’ show ‘foul’ – The World Tomorrow Sparks Media Frenzy

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Photo by Flickr user Espenmoe

MEDIA ROOTS — Many well educated and politically aware people in the United States would like to believe that the so-called ‘War On Terror,’ a false war against a tactic, will have no effect on their personal lives.  As long as it’s not affecting you, it’s not a problem, right?  Well, the problem is that many people who have chosen to lead politically active lifestyles have encountered, on a regular basis, the totalitarian weight of the ‘War On Terror,’ not because they are overly sensitive civil libertarians, but because they are being targeted specifically on U.S. soil for their political activism.  Political documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras is one such individual.

Written by Robbie Martin

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SALON — [Poitras’ next film] will examine the way in which The War on Terror has been imported onto U.S. soil, with a focus on the U.S. Government’s increasing powers of domestic surveillance, its expanding covert domestic NSA activities (including construction of a massive new NSA facilityin Bluffdale, Utah), its attacks on whistleblowers, and the movement to foster government transparency and to safeguard Internet anonymity. In sum, Poitras produces some of the best, bravest and most important filmmaking and journalism of the past decade, often exposing truths that are adverse to U.S. government policy, concerning the most sensitive and consequential matters (a 2004 film she produced for PBS on gentrification of an Ohio town won the Peabody Award and was nominated for an Emmy).

But Poitras’ work has been hampered, and continues to be hampered, by the constant harassment, invasive searches, and intimidation tactics to which she is routinely subjected whenever she re-enters her own country. Since the 2006 release of “My Country, My Country,” Poitras has left and re-entered the U.S. roughly 40 times. Virtually every time during that six-year-period that she has returned to the U.S., her plane has been met by DHS agents who stand at the airplane door or tarmac and inspect the passports of every de-planing passenger until they find her (on the handful of occasions where they did not meet her at the plane, agents were called when she arrived at immigration). Each time, they detain her, and then interrogate her at length about where she went and with whom she met or spoke. They have exhibited a particular interest in finding out for whom she works.

She has had her laptop, camera and cellphone seized, and not returned for weeks, with the contents presumably copied. On several occasions, her reporter’s notebooks were seized and their contents copied, even as she objected that doing so would invade her journalist-source relationship. Her credit cards and receipts have been copied on numerous occasions. In many instances, DHS agents also detain and interrogate her in the foreign airport before her return, on one trip telling her that she would be barred from boarding her flight back home, only to let her board at the last minute. When she arrived at JFK Airport on Thanksgiving weekend of 2010, she was told by one DHS agent — after she asserted her privileges as a journalist to refuse to answer questions about the individuals with whom she met on her trip — that he “finds it very suspicious that you’re not willing to help your country by answering our questions.” They sometimes keep her detained for three to four hours (all while telling her that she will be released more quickly if she answers all their questions and consents to full searches).

Poitras is now forced to take extreme steps — ones that hamper her ability to do her work — to ensure that she can engage in her journalism and produce her films without the U.S. Government intruding into everything she is doing. She now avoids traveling with any electronic devices. She uses alternative methods to deliver the most sensitive parts of her work — raw film and interview notes — to secure locations. She spends substantial time and resources protecting her computers with encryption and password defenses. Especially when she is in the U.S., she avoids talking on the phone about her work, particularly to sources. And she simply will not edit her films at her home out of fear — obviously well-grounded — that government agents will attempt to search and seize the raw footage.

Read more about U.S. filmmaker repeatedly detained at border.

MEDIA ROOTS — Earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta visited Manas Transit Center, located just outside of Bishkek.  Panetta’s coterie disclosed air-refueling operations, departing from Manas, had transferred 300 million pounds of jet fuel in 2011 alone.  This staggering figure provides a reflection point for any U.S. observer who follows the post-9/11 world closely. Above all, it begs the question: if one base in one year transferred that much fuel, then how much has U.S.A.’s military wasted since 2001?  In an era of great demand for increasingly scarce resources, the global citizenry must demand accountability for U.S.A.’s military waste and environmental damage.  Ultimately, a leadership failure and an apathetic U.S. citizenry contribute to the dismal status quo.

Locations
Recall our post-9/11 climate of fear, through which the Defense Department justified massive territorial and budgetary growth.  Since 2001, U.S.A.’s military expanded throughout Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East in an unprecedented manner.

USAFRICOM blankets the African continent, using embassies, the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP), and humanitarian pretexts to roam freely.  Thousands of U.S. troops are stationed at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.  This number doesn’t include certain elements from the 3rd, 5th, and 10th, Special Forces Groups whose areas of responsibility cover Sub-Saharan Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Northern Africa, respectively.  Although CIA has been playing Cold War games throughout Africa for decades, an overt, sustained, U.S. military presence is a fairly new wrinkle.  

In contrast, U.S.A.’s military boasts a deep tradition of interference in the oil-rich Middle East.  Current imperial outposts include Camp Arifjan, Al-‘Udeid Air Base, Incirlik Air Base, and Juffairare.  Dozens of other bases are scattered across the region, altogether hosting thousands of U.S. personnel in and out of uniform.  

The so-called War on Terror has not spared Southeast Asia or Latin America, as U.S.A.’s military occupies these regions under various pretexts.  Far from clandestine, Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P) even has its own Twitter account.  Able to successfully imbricate ‘terror’ with the so-called War on Drugs, U.S.A.’s military has continued its tradition of interference throughout Central and South America.  Recent meddling, which is a drop in the bucket compared to U.S.A.’s overall military presence,  includes a Fused Response exercise with Guyana, increased DEA and CIA interference in Mexico, sustained Foreign Military Financing of Columbia, Honduras, and other nations across what many military officials refer to as America’s backyard.  And, of course, fuel is required to transfer U.S. citizens and materiel to, from, in, and around these locations.

Some statistics shed more light upon military waste.  The Air Force has flown over 663,000 sorties and counting in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.  Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), responsible for moving everything associated with U.S.A.’s military, “conducted more than 37,000 airlift missions, transported more than 2.3 million passengers by air and 29 million short tons of cargo” in 2010.  In the process, TRANSCOM supplied deployed units with “food, fuel and spare parts, moved troops into the combat zone, and evacuated the wounded.”  In 2011, the Air Force set a new annual record in Afghanistan, dropping 75,956,235 pounds of cargo.  One military public relations official remarked, “that is the equivalent of standing on a mountain top and watching… 11,868 Chevrolet Silverado trucks floating down from the sky with parachutes to a landing zone.”  The total amount of cargo delivered in Afghanistan by airdrop from 2006 to 2010 was over 121 million pounds.  U.S.A.’s military bombarded at least 1,314 tons of bombs (2,628,000 pounds) on Afghanistan in 2008 alone.  The Department of Defense, an institution fundamentally incapable of conducting a basic audit of its own financial records, probably doesn’t even know the total tonnage of bombs unleashed.

From 2003-2011, hundreds of thousands of uniformed U.S. military, contractors, mercenaries, and third-country nationals (TCN) flew or rode into Iraq on the back of wasted fuel.  After U.S.A.’s invasion, the Pentagon constructed bases across Iraqi soil, establishing roughly 505 bases by 2008.  In 2011, much to the horror of my military peers stationed there, the Pentagon initiated orders to tear down some of its post-invasion construction, including but not limited to housing units, gazebos, dormitories, and recreational areas.  Considering that these facilities cost U.S. taxpayers astounding amounts of money to construct, one must inquire why Pentagon leadership decided to demolish so many structures before handing them over to the Iraqis.  When my peers inquired, their leadership absurdly rationalized U.S.A.’s military must return all property in the same condition in which it found it.  If it makes no sense, it’s probably courtesy of Pentagon leadership.  When not demolishing viable structures, U.S.A.’s military withdrew almost two million pieces of equipment from Iraq over eleven months.  Try to fathom the amount of fuel spent since 2003 on constructing U.S. military bases in Iraq, transporting troops, fuel, and goods throughout the country, only to demolish portions of these bases during troop withdrawal.  What a blatantly wasteful exercise in arrogance.

Pentagon officials brag that since September 2001, the Air Force has flown more than “15,750 personnel recovery sorties, recording 2,900 saves and 6,200 assists,” as if life and limb are now perverted into the same casual patois with which an ice hockey fan follows Roberto Luongo’s goaltending career.  Disgraceful accounting procedures aside, the Air Force has transported “more than 85,000 patients and more than 15,400 casualties” from USCENTCOM alone.  The aforementioned Manas Air Base has evacuated an additional 3,500 casualties and assisted in the travel of 580,000 passengers into and out of Afghanistan.  All told, at least 6,404 U.S. personnel have died from operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, not including military veterans who have died prematurely after returning home.  These examples highlight a portion of the time, fuel, resources, and lives wasted during U.S.A.’s global wars of imperialistic aggression.

We, U.S.A.’s citizenry, are to blame for not mobilizing swiftly against the military-industrial-media complex.  Considering the options available to the U.S. public outside of war in Iraq or a landlocked Asian nation, one must vomit at the funding, maintenance, individual opportunity cost, logistical support, fuel, death and pollution which were allocated to the elite’s wars.  Such profligate waste is profoundly frustrating.  Fossil fuels, as a finite resource, need to be preserved and exploited wisely for the betterment of society, with specific focus on producing the infrastructure necessary to convert U.S.A.’s economy towards renewable sources of energy.  Wasting fossil fuel needlessly during the prosecution of unnecessary wars is redundant lunacy.  Yet, lunacy is the norm set by Pentagon leadership.

Personal Touch
I witnessed waste every step of the way during my years in U.S.A.’s military.  During my deployment, a certain ISR platform regularly drew too much fuel during aerial refueling and routinely dumped excess fuel before landing.  The amount of tax-payer dollars wasted during this practice will never be known, nor will the amount of noxious jet fuel released into the environment unnecessarily.  After landing, our leadership then threw away much of the food we carried on board with us, even though the food products didn’t expire anytime soon.  I do not know if this practice also occurred on other airframes.  Waste pertains to all fossil fuel products.  Instead of refillable canteens or personal water bottles, leadership decided to purchase millions of 12-ounce plastic bottles from the local water company, Rayyan Water.  Leadership did not respond to calls from the enlisted corps to initiate a recycling program in coordination with the wealthy host nation, which would have led to proper disposal of these bottles.  Back in the States, attempts to recycle anything more than cardboard were consistently met with disdain from Air Force leadership.  Any comprehensive recycling programs had to be initiated and sustained entirely by low-ranking enlisted members with no support from higher leadership.  Excuses like ‘it’s too messy’ and ‘it’s too much work’ echoed throughout my military tenure.  Dr. Anne Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department, explained it best when she wrote about how struggles with military bureaucracy are where the vast majority of U.S.A.’s troops have done their best, given extraordinary challenges (2007: XIII).

After my deployment, I witnessed the 97th Intelligence Squadron’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for their new building, which received the base’s award for Silver Level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.  The 97IS spent roughly $24 million for this new facility, and couldn’t help but toot its own horn.  The Squadron Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Smith, spoke to the crowd at the ceremony: “Oh, by the way, we’re still carrying out our combat mission… on pace to fly some 20,000 combat missions this year.  If you can’t be proud of that on a day like today, then your proud meter is busted.”  Eloquence aside, no one at the ceremony cared to point out the building’s major flaws, which included lack of any comprehensive recycling program and massive vampire energy consumption from the building’s computers running unnecessarily twenty-four hours a day.  (The squadron’s IT department confirmed that the computers didn’t need to run continuously.)  The fact that a mediocre building set the green standard speaks volumes about our bleak situation.  Upon my honorable discharge, U.S.A.’s military accounted for over 80% of its government’s total energy use.

Roll Call
The military’s highest ranking officers set the tone for irresponsibility, as exemplified by change of command and retirement ceremonies.  Dozens of so-called VIPs fly across the country for these events, wasting countless gallons of fuel and millions in taxpayer money.  If the Defense Secretary and his subordinates actually care about protecting U.S.A.’s taxpayers, they would stop such whimsical journeys.  Keep in mind dozens of these wasteful ceremonies have occurred during an economic recession.  Apparently ego and pomp provide an exemption for these so-called leaders.  Pick any change of command or retirement ceremony and witness taxpayer dollars ripped up in front of your eyes.  Among others, these extravagances occurred recently at ceremonies for General Petraeus, Transportation Command, and Pacific Command.  Waste and ceremony go hand-in-hand for a mere one hour of self-congratulatory conceit.

Ceremonies are indeed a valued military tradition.  Therefore, it’s time to start a new tradition in which ‘dignitaries’ compose a kind letter to be read at a small ceremony.  They can even embrace new technology, like Wistia professional video hosting, to convey their respects.  This method, saving gallons of fuel and millions of taxpayer dollars, is a solid step towards environmental stewardship, long absent from the military’s massive, polluting footprint.  If an egotistical general officer insists, despite all reason to the contrary, on personally attending a military ceremony, he or she can spend their own money to fly in coach with the rest of U.S.A.  After all, military officers work for the people as part of their public service.  Live among them and drop the ego.  With U.S.A.’s general officers using commercial air travel, the Pentagon can sell its Cessna, Gulfstream, and Boeing VIP transport planes.  The sale of these planes can set an important precedent, provide much-needed liquidity for the U.S. Treasury, and contribute greatly to a shift in consciousness within U.S.A.’s war-fighting community.  No one is exempt from responsibility, whether an E-3 or an O-10; and all should behave accordingly.

The military’s job is to protect U.S.A., yet it is the number one consumer of fossil fuels in the entire world, spending roughly $13 billion on fuel in 2010.  As of early 2011, the Air Force alone was burning through seven million gallons of oil per day.  Near their peak, forces in Iraq and Afghanistan burned through roughly 11 million barrels of fuel each month.  The Air Force alone uses “about 2.5 billion gallons of fuel every year” with an “energy bill [of] about $9 billion.”  The Navy, benefiting from the use of nuclear power in submarines and aircraft carriers, admits to an annual petroleum consumption of 1.26 billion gallons.  As the nation’s top polluter, the Pentagon cannot claim to look out for the welfare of the country when it pollutes so prolifically.  In both the long and short term, the Pentagon harms more than it helps.

U.S.A.’s military is in grave danger, since it’s almost entirely dependent on petroleum to shoot, move, and communicate.  Operational energy (OE), the energy required to train, move, and sustain U.S.A.’s military, accounts for 75% of Pentagon energy use.  Under the current paradigm, one airman pumped 422,271 gallons of petroleum fuel in one month alone and each battlefield soldier or Marine requires 22 gallons of fuel per day to sustain.  Supervising the most energy-inefficient fighting force in the history of the world, the Pentagon burdens the troops.  In Afghanistan, one U.S. service member is killed in every twenty-four fuel convoys, amounting to more than 3,000 U.S. lives lost thus far.  Furthermore, petroleum fuel can cost the taxpayer up to $400 per gallon, once all transportation expenses are factored in.  Generals and admirals have been remarkably slow to respond to these deaths, preferring the blissful ignorance of their air-conditioned conference rooms to the harsh reality facing U.S. fighters.  Even Senator Mark Udall (D – CO) acknowledges that the Pentagon’s annual fuel invoice of $20 billion is a strategic vulnerability.

Yet, leadership still fails us.  The 2011 Pentagon Operational Energy Strategy is a “major disappointment” according to retired Brigadier General Steven Anderson.  It doesn’t contain any novel energy approaches and is not issued from the Secretary of Defense’s office, which would have given it greater weight in implementation.  In its current form, this “Strategy” simply follows the Pentagon’s anemic tradition of bureaucratic business-as-usual.  This approach is unsustainable and costly in terms of man-hours, fuel, public treasury, pollution, and U.S. lives.  If these trends persist, nobody would want to be Secretary of Defense on the day U.S.A. runs out of oil imports.

Pentagon leadership fails U.S.A. through sloth and resistance to change, perpetuated by over-reliance on pretexts which frame reform as an impediment to ‘mission effectiveness.’  Content sitting back and allowing our overseas military presence to be focused disproportionally around the oil producing nations of the Middle East, generalship avoids a greener military.  When examining why leadership is so disgustingly lethargic in implementing reform, one must consider how much the Pentagon benefits from our dependency on oil imports:

“Imagine the impact just on the Pentagon were this country actually to achieve anything approaching energy independence. U.S. Central Command would go out of business. Dozens of bases in and around the Middle East would close. The navy’s Fifth Fleet would stand down. Weapons contracts worth tens of billions would risk being cancelled” (Bacevich 2008: 173).  

Many officers who occupy positions of power have the ability to positively affect U.S.A.’s energy independence, both militarily and domestically.  We can only hope that the individuals who hold these critical positions will lead through innovation and dedication to a greener planet, incorporating environmentally responsible behavior into the fundamentals of U.S.A.’s military.

Some military planners have considered converting all military bases into ‘net zero’ installations, which requires on-site production of all energy needs.  Others have tentatively proposed incorporating movement of energy supplies into war game scenarios.  This step would benefit greatly from a partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, initiated in order to share and incorporate best practices into tactical and strategic military operations.  Other important first steps can emulate the Army’s contract with Clark Energy Group, which is constructing a solar farm at Fort Irwin, CA.  Removing some military installations from the polluting civilian electric grid and placing them on solar, wind, and geothermal power, has another added bonus: security.  Domestically, U.S.A.’s military is nearly completely dependent on a commercial electric grid that is highly vulnerable to disruption.  The more installations that are converted to ‘net zero’ status, the more secure U.S.A.’s military becomes.  Everybody wins, except for the victims of U.S. foreign policy.

With a focus on humility and technology, a coterie of green generals can use their clout to implement a range of novel concepts.  Cardiovascular exercise equipment can be modified to produce energy, not consume it.  Motion sensor lights can be installed in military barracks, offices, and facilities.  Recycling can be mandated in military communities.  Military families can use websites like Streetbank to reuse and share belongings.  Domestic military bases can explore the feasibility of on-site geothermal energy production.  U.S.A.’s overseas bases can coordinate recycling programs with the host country as another means of engaging the local public.  The Pentagon can follow Thule Air Base’s lead and recycle its inventory of scrap metal.  Plastic bags can be banned from all Base Exchanges.  Tax exemptions can be provided to individuals who purchase windmills, solar panels, join renewable energy cooperatives, or construct greenhouses.  The Navy can use tidal and wave power.  Biomass can be used for heating barracks, costing roughly half as much as conventional oil.  Green generals can implement shuttle systems to and from military housing communities, allowing military personnel to embrace the joy and asceticism of public transportation.  The associated reduction in traffic flow improves Force Protection measures, which military leadership must applaud.  Green generals can set up local dispensaries where cellulosic ethanol can be produced from families’ garden and lawn scraps.  Regenerative braking can be mandated in all new military vehicles.  Instead of running on JP-8 and other jet fuels, deployed forces can legally purchase electricity from native sources, supplemented by solar, wind, and geothermal power.  If Combatant Commanders are concerned about the reliability of local energy sources, perhaps a greater ‘nation-building’ focus on symbiosis is required to help the locals they occupy to refine their own energy capacities.  Crucially, a greater downrange reliance on HUMINT tradecraft, instead of computer-intensive SIGINT, will likewise reduce the military’s overseas energy demand.  These are examples of the military leadership that U.S.A. deserves.  Imagine if these ideas were pursued with the same vim with which the Defense Department pursues weapons development.

Extraordinary efforts across the military can achieve the change in culture necessary to reduce waste.  This requires implementing energy awareness curriculums in enlisted basic training, Officer Training Schools, Officer Candidate Schools, ROTC, every service academy, professional war colleges and senior NCO academies.  Greener curriculums can emphasize the value of individual initiative and emphasize teamwork.  Individual initiative inspires energy conservation’s inclusion among the military’s portfolio of PowerPoint presentations.  Teamwork inspires a posse of command pilots to promote alternative power sources for jet aircraft and insist that the next generation of aircraft will be oil-free.  Semper Fidelis, Integrity First, Non sibi sed patriae, and This We’ll Defend all apply to environmental responsibility.  Paramount among curriculum change is recognizing that a successful military fights in harmony with the environment, not against it.  As it stands, Sun Tzu laughs at U.S.A.’s military.

Given every dollar increase in the price of petroleum costs the military an additional $31 million, Mabus has U.S.A.’s best interests in mind when wanting to use the military’s fiscal weight to kick-start the alternative fuels market, ultimately benefiting all of humankind.  Yes, Mabus’ stance neglects the darker side of capitalistic greed and ignores moral imperatives, but the Pentagon’s exorbitant operational energy requirement can nonetheless create robust demand for green energy supplies.  Green companies can exploit the military’s obese coffers, at taxpayer expense, in order to produce viable alternative energy sources at competitive prices while boosting production of unconventional energy sources.  Nascent, proven technologies, like bacteria-fuelled, self-powered cells that produce an infinite supply of hydrogen, or a silicon strip capable of using sunlight to make power, need this type of financial support to get off the ground.  That, in a nut-shell, is the Pentagon’s green role.

Do not misunderstand.  The amount of financial sway that the Defense Department wields is a national tragedy.  U.S. citizens should not have to look towards the war machine to kick-start any domestic industry.  However, at this point we have little stomach for alternatives.  Citizens can still work hard, advocate strongly, and participate in non-violent direct action against the Pentagon.  Such mobilization is not mutually exclusive with orienting the military towards greener policies.

We have come full circle, after analyzing the fuel wasted transporting material and troops to, from, and around deployed locations, construction and destruction of warzone facilities, and leadership failure.  U.S.A. waits with bated breath for the Pentagon, ignominiously known as the world’s worst bureaucracy, to kick its efforts into high gear.  True change will only arise from an informed and engaged public dedicated to resisting the war industry’s unseen externalities and to giving new meaning to the motto This We’ll Defend.  All hope lies with U.S.A.’s citizenry.  

So, as Secretary Panetta travels throughout Central Asia imposing the Pentagon’s so-called War on Terror, we must remain mindful of the following:  Above all other methods, the easiest way to curb military pollution and stop the waste of fuel is to cease wars of aggression.  Instead of wasting finite resources in support of imperialistic wars, they need to be utilized prudently, focusing specifically on converting U.S.A.’s infrastructure into a capable, green economy.

Written by Christian Sorensen for Media Roots

Additional References:
Bacevich, Andrew. The Limits of Power, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.
Slaughter, Anne Marie. The Idea That Is America, New York: Basic Books, 2007.
Turse, Nick. The Complex, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.

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Photos by Flickr user Afghanisan (feature) and Troops Iraq (synopsis)

MEDIA ROOTS — With governments, citizens, and activists worldwide increasingly relying on the internet, the environment the internet fosters is a hotly contested issue.  Last summer, the United Nations declared that disconnecting people from the internet was a human rights violation and against international law.  Considering internet access as a human right and witnessing the vital contribution it has played in the Arab Spring and Occupy Movements, the sanctity of preserving a free and open internet, or net neutrality, can’t be understated.  Even the U.S. military recently acknowledged the critical role of cyberspace by including the digital domain in its latest concept of “full spectrum dominance.” 

As humanity’s relationship with the burgeoning information age matures, threats to a free and open internet continue to proliferate.  Indeed, when the printed press, radio, TV, and every other technological innovation, which have promised to revolutionize public access to a diversity of information, were developed, they’ve faced consolidation, monopolization, and the resultant transferences of power and control into few hands.  Now, potential predators stalk the digital realm; and they have been revealed as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.

SOPA, PIPA and ACTA all generally share the same goals which are to ostensibly protect trademarks and intellectual property, while fending off counterfeiting and pirating.  SOPA and PIPA are U.S. pieces of legislation, while ACTA is a transnational agreement.  After recent public outcries, internet users defeated an attempt to pass SOPA and PIPA on Capitol Hill.  However, SOPA will be resurrected soon.  Meanwhile, countries around the world vigorously protest the enactment of ACTA.  What’s the significance of these acronyms on our digital routines?  Let’s break each one down individually and have a closer look.

PIPA: Protect IP Act – Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property

PIPA’s stated goal would have given the U.S. government and copyright holders additional capabilities to restrict access to websites involved in copyright infringement and the distribution of counterfeit goods.  Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) originally introduced Senate Bill 968 on May 12, 2011, but the motion to proceed with the legislation was withdrawn January 23, 2011. 

The most controversial aspect of the bill would have enabled Domain Name System (DNS) blocking and redirection.  DNS serves as the virtual yellow pages of the internet.  By blocking and redirecting DNS, this essentially tears entire pages out of the phone book, creating an incomplete version, no longer compatible with the rest of the world.  In this scenario, a simple search for a site would yield a message stating the site no longer exists. 

SOPA: Stop Online Piracy Act

SOPA (H.R. 3261) is the sister bill to PIPA in the House of Representatives.  SOPA was introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX).  Its legal aim was to provide law enforcement agencies greater online jurisdiction to prevent violation of copyrighted intellectual property and the creation of counterfeit goods. 

According to OpenCongress.org,

“This bill would establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department [DoJ] determines to be dedicated to copyright infringement. The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against any site they deem to have ‘only limited purpose or use other than infringement,’ and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. It would also make unauthorized web streaming of copyrighted content a felony with a possible penalty up to five years in prison.”

The bill’s inherent dangers would have allowed the U.S. government and private companies to arbitrarily incapacitate websites, thus threatening freedom of speech.  Furthermore, thousands of websites would have been jeopardized based on their user-generated content, which in turn, frequently relies on copyrighted material.  Following the SOPA Blackout Day on January 18^th, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) rescinded H.R. 3261’s vote on January 24, 2012. 

This brief video offers a concise explanation of SOPA.

The battle for online freedom plows ahead, in light of a new bill originating in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.  Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who chairs the Committee, is engineering the latest attempt to widely expand authority by Executive Branch departments over the internet.  The debut of this new cybersecurity bill is expected today, February 16, 2012.  Details of the cybersecurity bill have not been revealed, a result of the legislation’s crafters meeting behind closed doors.  Theories abound that the bill, which has benefited from bipartisan support, would grant the Department of Homeland Security expansive new powers to regulate and stake out the internet under the pretext of cybersecurity.  However, the persistent attempts to pass such legislation adversely impacting free speech and the flow of information must be questioned.  Large amounts of financial contributions to politicians, as well as dubious connections, may indicate that a broader agenda is at work.

Supporters of SOPA and PIPA will likely vigorously lobby for the new cybersecurity bill to be passed.  Backers of this type of legislation read like a who’s who list of Hollywood industry bosses.  From the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), major Hollywood power brokers angle to protect their interests.  A total of 161 entities have stumped for the passage of SOPA and PIPA.  Besides the MPAA and RIAA, they include the AFL-CIO, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Comcast, Disney, and Sony.  Based on some of the groups in favor, the entire matter appears to be a pet project of the Democrat Party.  This comes as no surprise when considering who the vanguard of Hollywood intellectual property has historically been.

Chris Dodd has made it his mission to crusade in Washington D.C. on behalf of Hollywood under the pretext of copyright protection legislation.  Dodd is the perfect bridge between Hollywood and the Beltway.  On March 1, 2011, Dodd was chosen as chairman of the MPAA.  On the side, he also lobbies for an organization called Creative America. 

According to Creative America’s website:

“…everyone in the community recognizes what a grave threat content theft poses to our livelihood and creativity – that thieves are making millions of dollars trafficking in stolen film and television while our jobs, pensions and residuals continue to decline.”

Some of the groups involved with Creative America include the CBS Corporation, NBC Universal, the Screen Actors Guild, Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, and Warner Bros. Entertainment.  A simple search into Dodd’s previous career uncovers much cozier ties to D.C.

Dodd has enjoyed over three decades as a senator and has the distinction of being Connecticut’s longest serving senate member.  He’s one of the most recognizable Democratic senators of years past, with posts on the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.  However, his post-political career has proven quite lucrative.  According to sources, Dodd rakes in a $1.5 million salary as chairman of the MPAA.  The appointment of Dodd to head the MPAA might be the biggest coup Hollywood has had in years. 

Further evidence from Dodd himself reinforces this as he threatened to cut off financial contributions from Hollywood to politicians who did not support SOPA and PIPA.  The pipeline of sizeable contributions from Hollywood going to politicians is a healthy one most on Capitol Hill would prefer to preserve.

Democrat Senator Harry Reid has also asserted himself a champion of SOPA and PIPA legislation.  He has brought various versions of the bill to the Senate floor and may be bound to three and half million vested interests to pass the legislation; Reid was the beneficiary of $3.5 million from SOPA and PIPA advocates during the last campaign cycle.  Although donations to Reid stand out by far, other elected officials supporting the legislation have received contributions, too:  Democrat Chuck Schumer ($2.6 million), Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand ($2 million), Democrat Barbara Boxer ($1.4 million), and Republican Michael Bennet ($1 million).  Clearly, millions of reasons jeopardize maintaining a free and open internet.  One of those reasons is another piece of little known legislation, called ACTA.

ACTA: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

ACTA protests have flashed across Europe over recent weeks.  Anti-ACTAvists have sprung up from the Netherlands to Germany to Poland and many other countries throughout Europe.  The contentious nature of ACTA attempts to normalize an international legal framework that enforces intellectual property rights, but also endeavors to target counterfeit goods and even generic medications.  On October 1^st, 2011, Australia, Japan, Canada, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States signed the agreement.  At the start of 2012, the European Union and 22 of its member states ratified ACTA, bringing the total signatories to 31. 

Battle lines have been drawn and two organizations are standing toe to toe—the MPAA and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).  According to the EFF, “[…] copyright industry rightsholder groups have sought stronger powers to enforce their intellectual property rights […] to preserve their business models.”  This sentiment essentially drives to the heart of the debate, one which also includes SOPA and PIPA.  Those opposed to restricting the internet view these efforts as a veiled and desperate attempt at trying to preserve an atrophying business model, being rendered obsolete by the age of digital file sharing.  This sentiment has galvanized many who sense that the true reason the public digital domain is under siege is in attempts to undermine free speech and democracy.  Due to what’s at stake, emotions have run high.  U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has called it “more dangerous than SOPA.”  Popular opinion likely agrees with Issa, but is the truth harder to discern?

A lot of misinformation swirls around ACTA.  The hacktivist group Anonymous shares some of the blame.  A popular video produced by the amorphous, hacktivist collective shines light on ACTA’s pitfalls.  But is the hit piece video accurate?  According to ArsTechnica.com, there are four dubious claims that Anonymous makes:  ISPs will monitor all your data packets, ACTA obliges its member countries to assent to the worst features of SOPA and PIPA, generic drugs will be banned and seeds will be controlled via patents, and ISPs will be constantly required to scour their servers for even the smallest bits of copyrighted material.  The Anonymous video, which includes a qualifying disclaimer at the outset, has been widely embedded in articles online and reached nearly one million views.  Anonymous noted, “This video may not reflect the recent changes within the ACTA text.  However, it will give you an idea of what ACTA is about and why the internet should fight it.”  And, of course, after sorting any conflicting claims, ACTA still deserves a thumbs-down verdict.  We also bear in mind internet censorship, freedom of speech restrictions, loss of net neutrality, domestic surveillance, and civil rights erosions and police state repression have already been ongoing issues plaguing the U.S.  ACTA would simply codify existing repressive policies for people in the U.S. under the pretext of opposing counterfeiting.

ACTA is a poorly crafted agreement and simply bad.  ACTA’s basic criticisms are threefold:  the agreement’s designers are not democratically elected nor accountable, the ACTA negotiations were held in secret, and there was no discussion held in a public forum.  ReadWrite Enterprise does a fine job laying out ten reasons why ACTA fails.  Furthermore, even though ACTA probably won’t change U.S. law, it would lock us into a constrictive legal space in an area of law that changes rapidly.  Much like activists around the world can now respond more quickly to police brutality and government tactics of repression thanks to the internet, file sharing enthusiasts are finding new ways to circumvent internet censorship just as quickly.

The Internet Can’t Be Bound and Gagged

Already the hive mind of the internet has developed a solution to undercut potential censorship attempts.  Many people are unaware the internet exists similarly to an iceberg; only a small portion of it is visible to the average user.  A significant amount of the internet lies hidden in an area called the deep web.  The deep web lies obfuscated to the armchair web surfer due to an inability to access it by simply typing it into a search engine and accessing it.  For example, the deep web does not employ the use of meta tags or DNS and blocks search engines, among other characteristics, making navigation there challenging.  In this secretive environment, hackers have been diligently working on a new protocol called Tribler.

Tribler works in a similar fashion to other BitTorrent clients except that when search results are produced, they aren’t procured from a central index, rather they are directly produced from other peers.  According to TorrentFreak,

“Downloading a torrent is also totally decentralized. When a user clicks on one of the search results, the meta-data is pulled in from another peer and the download starts immediately. Tribler is based on the standard BitTorrent protocol and uses regular BitTorrent trackers to communicate with other peers. But, it can also continue downloading when a central tracker goes down.”

This type of decentralized structure would allow users to create ‘channels’ amongst themselves and make Tribler an indomitable force, making neutralization by censors extremely difficult.  Tribler will make it “impossible to shut down unless the whole Internet goes down with it.”  This will come as excellent news to millions of people witnessing attempts to stifle internet freedom with ACTA, SOPA, PIPA, and ongoing attacks on net neutrality. 

The race to control the internet rages on, but developments like this beg the question:  Does the internet adapt and evolve too quickly for elected officials to harness it?  This brings to mind Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.  Some things can just never be caught.  However, U.S. voters continue to support the two-party system, which continually abandons them whilst representing corporate interests.  Time will tell.

Written by Adam Miezio for Media Roots

Photo by Flickr user DonkeyHotey