Category: Bombs and rockets

Military matters and state security: the hard-edged kind of international relations

The fall of Berlin, 1945, part 1/X

“Dr. Margot Sauerbruch also expected the worst. She worked with her husband, Professor Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Germany’s most eminent surgeon, in Berlin’s oldest and largest hospital, the Charité, in the Mitte district. Because of its size and location close by the main railway station, the hospital had received the worst of the refugee cases. From her examination of the victims, Dr. Sauerbruch had no illusions about the ferocity of the Red Army when it ran amok. The rapes, she knew for certain, were not propaganda.

Margot Sauerbruch was appalled by the number of refugees who had attempted suicide – including scores of women who had not been molested or violated. Terrified by what they had witnessed or heard, many had slashed their wrists. Some had even tried to kill their children. How many had actually succeeded in ending their lives nobody knew – Dr. Sauerbruch saw only those who had failed – but it seemed clear that a wave of suicides would take place in Berlin if the Russians captured the city.

Most other doctors apparently concurred with this view. In Wilmersdorf, Surgeon Gunther Lamprecht noted in his diary that ‘the major topic – even among doctors – is the technique of suicide. Conversations of this sort have become unbearable.'”

Ryan, Cornelius. The Last Battle. 1966. p. 31

Joseph Carens on illegal immigrants

“Some people would say that “illegal immigrants” should have no legal rights at all, precisely because their very presence is “illegal.” But no one really would defend that view if they thought about it for a moment. The fact that immigrants have settled without authorization does not mean that it’s O.K. to kill them or beat them up or rob them. Even “illegals” are entitled to protection of their basic human rights, and most people acknowledge this in principle.

The problem is that some (in Arizona, for example) want to link immigration enforcement to everything else, so that those whose job it is to protect basic human rights, like local police or workers in emergency rooms, are expected to report anyone with an irregular immigration status. The result is that irregular migrants will steer clear of the authorities, and so will be vulnerable to extreme abuse. If we take human rights seriously, we should take the opposite approach. We should create a firewall between immigration enforcement and those responsible for protecting basic human rights. Irregular migrants would then know that they could go to the police or to the emergency room without worrying about getting reported. That’s what cities like New York are trying to do.”

From: “When Immigrants Lose Their Human Rights“, New York Times, 25 November 2014

On ‘love of country’

Love of country! There’s a curious phrase. Love of a particular patch of earth? Scarcely. Put a German down in a field in Northern France, tell him that it is Hannover, and he cannot contradict you. Love of fellow-countrymen? Surely not. A man will like some of them and dislike others. Love of the country’s culture? The men who know most of their countries’ cultures are usually the most intelligent and the least patriotic. Love of the country’s government? But governments are usually disliked by the people they govern. Love of country, we see, is merely a sloppy mysticism based on ignorance and fear. It has its uses, of course. When a ruling class wishes a people to do something which that people does not want to do, it appeals to patriotism. And, of course, one of the things that people dislike most is allowing themselves to be killed.

Ambler, Eric. Journey into Fear. (New York: Knopf, 1943; rpt. Bantam), p. 166.

What if?

My copy of Randall Monroe’s What if? book arrived from Amazon today, and I spent a pleasant couple of hours in the Upper Library going through it. Right from the disclaimer it is quite entertaining:

The author of this book is an Internet cartoonist, not a health or safety expert. He likes it when things catch fire or explode, which means he does not have your best interests in mind.

Toronto friends are welcome to borrow the book and learn about bullet-sized pieces of material with neutron star density; the effects of draining Earth’s oceans; the plausibility of eradicating the common cold through global quarantine; and similarly practical matters.

Insurgent motivations in El Salvador, 1987-96

“My insurgent informants made it clear to me that moral commitments and emotional engagements were principal reasons for their insurgent collective action during the civil war. Before the war, many participated in a social movement calling for economic reform and political inclusion because they had become convinced that social justice was God’s will. As government violence deepened, some rural residents supported the armed insurgency as an act of defiance of long-resented authorities and a repudiation of perceived injustices (particularly brutal and arbitrary state violence). Participation per se expressed outrage and defiance; its force was not negated by the unlikeliness of victory and in any case was not contingent on one’s participation. Through rebellion, insurgent residents asserted their dignity in the face of condescension, repression, and indifference. As state terror decreased, insurgent collective action spread across most of the case-study areas once more as residents occupied properties and claimed land for insurgent cooperatives. They did so despite their already having access to abandoned land because they took pride, indeed pleasure, in the successful assertion of their interests and identity, what I term the pleasure of agency. To occupy properties was to assert a new identity of social equality, to claim rights to land and self-determination, and to refute condescending elite perceptions of one’s incapacities. In short, insurgent supporters were motivated in part by the value they put on being part of making history.” p. 119-20 (paperback)

Wood, Elizabeth Jean. “Ethnographic Research in the Shadow of Civil War” in Schatz, Edward. Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Open thread: thorium-fueled nuclear reactors

Whenever the many problems with nuclear power are raised, there are people who suggest that everything could be fixed with a substantial technical change: moving to generation IV reactors, for instance, or the ever-elusive fusion possibility.

Another common suggestion is that using thorium for reactor fuel could limit concerns about proliferation, as well as (modest) concerns about uranium availability.

I have read a lot of contradictory things on the subject of thorium, so it seems useful to have a thread tracking information on the issue.