Little Mr Mahatma

In which the middle-aged Peacenik mouths off about War Drones--and all the other things that make him cranky.

Mr Mahatma--who is a Mr in real life--lives in the valleys of Southern California with his wife, a herd of Dears, and an impressive collection of books. Pnorny!
He is reachable at:
littlemrmahatma@yahoo.com

All writings are copyrighted 2003-2008 and trademarked: Little Mr. Mahatma

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Little Mr Mahatma

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Fighting Terrorism
The devil is in the details or the fine print. When reading the below it's hard not to think how this could be abused. Note that it never mentions what would happen if a "rescue group" entered a country (illegally) and got caught. Or what's to keep such a group from...umm...assassinating a hostile leader, which is entirely possible given the broad definition of terrorism. More importantly, if we have this policy what's to keep other countries from declaring a similar policy? If our terrorist policy allows to pre-emptively invade a country and covertly operate, other countries should be able to operate in the same fashion. Now, what happens if the U.S. is declared a terrorist nation? Yep, shit hits fan. But expect this stupid plan to pass; logic, consequences, and morality be damned.

Pentagon Seeking Leeway Overseas

By Ann Scott Tyson and Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writers

The Pentagon is promoting a global counterterrorism plan that would allow Special Operations forces to enter a foreign country to conduct military operations without explicit concurrence from the U.S. ambassador there, administration officials familiar with the plan said.

The plan would weaken the long-standing "chief of mission" authority under which the U.S. ambassador, as the president's top representative in a foreign country, decides whether to grant entry to U.S. government personnel based on political and diplomatic considerations.

The Special Operations missions envisioned in the plan would largely be secret, known to only a handful of officials from the foreign country, if any.

The change is included in a highly classified "execute order" -- part of a broad strategy developed since Sept. 11, 2001, to give the U.S. Special Operations Command new flexibility to track down and destroy terrorist networks worldwide, the officials said.

Vacation
Last weekend we took the Horde and a very brave friend (call him NudistGuy) up to the mountains near Frazier Park. We rented a nice, cozy, kid friendly (lots of Disney videos) cabin. The prior week we had rain and the prediction for the weekend had been more rain. We questioned our sanity as we got on the 5 freeway during rush hour in the rain. But once we got to Gorman, the traffic and the rain lightened up. A bit of dinner and off we were to Frazier Park - actually beyond it - to Pine Mountain.

And it was beautiful. Sure, it rained at night but each day was relatively clear. We took the kids to the snow and turned them loose with the Sleds o' Doom and the Innertube From Hell. After a bit when we were all thoroughly wet and chilled, back to the cabin for hot chocolate and warm Disney videos. NudistGuy had brought a video camera which the kids glommed onto. They made a video parodying Indiana Jones, Yu-Gi-Oh, Yu-yu Hakusha, and other references I didn't get. Not bad for kids under 10. Kept them busy.

When we returned home, it turned out that we had better weather than in L.A.. It happens. We were glad to discover such a nice vacation option so close to home. It beats the 2.5 hours to get to Lake Arrowhead or Idyllwild.

9:37 AM

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