We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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It has been reported that Iranian dissident TV programmes being broadcast into Iran via satellite from the USA are being jammed… from Cuba! Of course I have no doubt that the Communist Cuban government will deny they are responsible.
Fair enough. As a result, it would be really… interesting… to see some equally non-governmental action to stop them. I wonder how much it would cost to lash up ‘private sector’ anti-radiation missile with just enough range to reach the jammer in Bejucal, (near Havana) from not-too-far-into Cuban airspace? Let’s call it a ‘Rattlesnake’ (as in Don’t Tread on Me)
As tactical surprise would be complete, the ‘Rattlesnake’ would not need to be fast (more akin to a cruise missile than a Shrike or HARM), just so long as it had enough range. A simple aluminum airframe with little wings to minimize the propellant requirement, perhaps a stripped down off-the-shelf GPS unit for cruise guidance and a tuned passive homer for terminal guidance (you know, the sort of gear the US government pays hundreds of thousands for and which can be bought in Radio Shack for a few hundred bucks). If the weapon was accurate enough, a small 10 lbs improvised pre-fragmented warhead would probably be sufficient. If the whole thing could be kept under 250 lbs, it would be easy to modify all manner of private airplanes to carry it.
A 15 mile engagement envelope for a Hi-Hi-Lo stand-off attack would probably be adequate: skirt Cuban airspace, suddenly turn in for the attack, shallow dive for speed to maximise range of the missile, release the ‘Rattlesnake’, then dive for the deck at just under the speed your wings will fall off and run for Key West (or elsewhere) at wave-top level long before you develop any MIG or SAM ‘problems’…but obviously the longer the range of the weapon, the better.
Key West, Mexico and a zillion little islands are only a few minutes flight time away for a low flying private airplane and, as I am sure any trafficker in ‘herbs and spices’ in that part of the world will tell you, there are an awful lot of small airfields in the Caribbean.
It is just an idea, of course… pure fantasy…I would not dream of actually inciting anyone to do this. That would be bad. I mean, if people started doing that sort of thing, folks might get it into their heads that it is okay to shoot at tyrants wherever they are found… and we wouldn’t want that now, would we?
Link via Zem
I do believe that we may be witnessing the final days of Cuba’s squalid communist regime:
The first wave of dissidents rounded up in a nationwide crackdown went on trial Thursday as Fidel Castro’s government moved to wipe out growing opposition. Prosecutors sought life sentences for 12 of the 80 defendants.
“While the rest of the hemisphere has moved toward greater freedom, the anachronistic Cuban government appears to be retreating into Stalinism,” department spokesman Philip Reeker said in Washington.
When governments start incarcerating their political opponents for life, it is because they are frightened and deeply worried and usually with good reason. I suspect the game is nearly up.
And, just as an aside, doesn’t this show up the juvenile, publicity-seeking, egocentrism of the ‘Bush is Hitler’ mob in sharp relief? While genuine freedom fighters risk their very lives by taking on ‘Il Presidente’, the likes of Michael Moore can pose as ‘oppressed heroic victims’ while being chauffeured around to their various awards ceremonies and public speaking engagements.
The Cuban Human Rights Commission reports 65 dissidents, mainly independent journalists, have been arrested in a three day crackdown.
Castro, as cynical as ever, is taking advantage of the world’s attention being focussed on the overthrow of another Socialist military dictator.
Paul Staines
So now we will see another test of George Bush’s very shaky Free Trader credentials. He rightly wants Latin America to open up its markets to mutually enriching capitalism via the Free Trade Area of Americas (FTAA) agreements… but will the USA do the same for its markets?
In order to make FTAA worthwhile, Brazil has demanded the United States open its fiercely protected sugar, steel and citrus markets to freer competition.
Analysts agree that without Brazil there will be no FTAA, and it is unclear how quickly Washington can lower key tariffs.
It amazes me how so many US Republicans who cursed every breath taken by Bill Clinton, damning him quite rightly as an unprincipled political weathervane, nevertheless just gloss over George Bush’s dismal record on liberalising world trade. Why is allowing the state to interfere in markets so as to make products such as sugar, lumber, steel and fruit more expensive to American consumers and industry just shrugged off?
The need for political support from key states, you say? Ah, I see. So you mean George Bush is just an unprincipled political weathervane, then. Gotcha.
Hernando de Soto seems to have had an immense impact on all of Spanish America, and most particularly on his homeland of Peru. Unfortunately you hear very little about Peru in the news other than Fujimori escapades or Shining Path villainy. This letter from Dr. Edgar David Villaneuva Nunez, Congressman of the Republica of Peru to Microsoft shows an entirely different side of government in Peru. It is much worth the read whether your interest is in the meta-context shining through it, or of the powerful set of arguments Dr Nunez makes for free software.
The story is in the letter so I will let Dr. Nunez provide the rest of the narrative.
Hugo Chavez is back in the presidential palace, as I lamented last Monday when I flippantly suggested the coup plotters should have shot him… only I was not really joking. There are all manner of rumour such as this from Instapundit on Wednesday that this is far from played out.
Hugo Chavez is the duly elected President of Venezuela. So what? When democracy and tyranny are on the same side, to hell with democracy. Democracy is not an end in and of itself, just a means to an end and that end is liberty… if a majority voted to expel all black people from the USA, would that be okay just because it is democratically sanctified? Of course not. If democracy leads to liberty, fine. If it does not, then time for a coup d’état. I am quite serious that my only problem with the coup against Chavez is they did not shoot the bastard dead. Sic semper tyrannis.
I have had a couple e-mails asking me what I thought about the situation in Venezuela and the fact Hugo Chevez seems to be back in office after the Army deposed him. I assume the reason these two readers asked me what I thought on the subject, which is a bit off my usual polemical stomping grounds, is presumably because I wrote a well received piece on the subject of Hugo Chavez back in December.
Well all I can say is what is it with kids these days? The younger generation just do not take pride in their work. Back when I was a youngster, we all knew that a coup d’etat was not over until you have shot El Presidente dead on the steps of his palace.
…when the law you break has no moral basis.
In 1991, a crime was committed in New York. The UN imposed an arms embargo on all of the former Yugoslavia and all the national governments who voted for that resolution were parties to that crime.
At the same time as this crime against the peoples of Croatia and Bosnia i Herzegovina was happening, Argentine Economics Minister Domingo Cavallo was conspiring successfully to sell Argentine weapons to Croatia via a series of dummy companies and third parties.
Now I am under no illusions that Mr. Cavallo was motivated by any desire to right the wrong done by the UN when it tried to prevent the poorly armed Croatian and Bosnian peoples under attack by the Yugoslav Army from defending themselves. Nevertheless, that was exactly what the results of his self-serving actions were. We were able to fight and survive and eventually prevail.
Yesterday Domingo Cavallo was arrested under the orders of politically motivated judges for his part in that entirely moral series of arms sales between 1991 and 1995. Argentine congressional deputy Elisa Carrio, an independent anti-corruption campaigner, welcomed the ruling that resulted in Cavallo’s arrest yesterday saying “Truth and justice will prevail”. Guess what, Elisa… it already has and you would not know what either looked like if they bit you in the behind.
And so, Domingo, whatever else you may have done and deserve to be punished for, I hope you beat the rap on this one because there was no moral reason for you not to have done it and several excellent reasons to do so. And given the state of the Argentine economy, I hope you stashed your end of the proceeds in Zürich, not Buenos Aires.
A salute of many popping champaign bottles to our confreres with the Movimiento Libertario Costa Rica on winning at least five (and possibly seven) of the 57 seats in the Congress of Costa Rica. Bravo!
Phil Thomas writes in with some remarks about the mess in Argentina
The antiglobalisation movement has made much of the current economic state of Argentina, claiming that the crisis is just the latest example of the economic depression and general ruin that following recommendations of the IMF and similar institutions to create and sustain robust, functional markets brings upon a nation. These activists are mistaken. It is certainly true that Argentine officials attempted to follow IMF advice in reforming many areas of the economy.
However, many of these reforms were stopped mid-stream and later abandoned, as Steve Hanke, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins, details in a Cato Institute report. Once any attempt to provide a sound foundation for Argentina’s economy was abandoned, it was only a matter of time until the system was in serious trouble. Abandoning the path of sound markets, along with a dramatic increase in taxation over the past decade, sealed Argentina’s fate. In the end, blame for the current Argentine affair rests not with the international institutions or international capitalism in general, but with the Argentine politicians who saw fit to kill efforts to build a sound economy and in so doing mismanage their country into the ground.
Phil Thomas
FARC off
Colombia’s marxist rebel army has meekly agreed to dismantle its checkpoints, vacate its strongholds and return to negotiations rather than face an onslaught from the Colombian Army
Do these people imagine that they are geniune, bona fide marxist rebels? They’re nothing but a bunch of lily-livered, yuppified, namby-pamby WIMPS!! Now I remember the days when marxist rebels really were marxist rebels and could be counted on not to stop fighting until they were streaming up the steps of the Presidential Palace shouting Viva La Revolucion!!!, pouring El Presidentes finest single malt whisky all over the cobblestone streets and waving his mistresses silk panties on the ends of their bayonets
I don’t know. Marxists just ain’t what they used to be
This latest Don Feder column, advocating the continued embargo against Cuba, nearly chokes to death on its own contradictions. First, Feder contends:
Castro has nothing we want and nothing to pay for what he wants from us.
If Cuba had something we wanted, of course, they would have something with which to pay for what they want. And in his concluding paragraph, Feder, perhaps unintentionally, concedes that Cuba does indeed have something Americans want:
Besides supporting oppression of the Cuban people, unrestricted U.S. trade — and the tourist dollars to follow — would be invested in America’s destruction. As U.S. forces clean out the Tora Bora caves, we would be nuts to subsidize a branch office of the terrorist international 90 miles from our shores.
Hmmm … so Cubans do have something Americans want — tourism, for one thing. If they “had nothing we wanted,” they would not earn any income with which to pad the coffers of terrorists, now, would they?
The antiterrorist argument is a nonstarter. We do not trade with Cuba now, and they are already a bastion of terrorism. Terrorists could function anywhere, and they generally choose not to set up shop in open, free societies. They operate from repressive places like Afghanistan, Libya and Cuba, right? By keeping Cuba cordoned off from US markets, we are making the place more inviting to terrorists. Moreover, if we opened trade to them, we could at least threaten to shut them out of our markets again if they don’t vigorously prosecute terrorists.
Castro has plodded on in Cuba precisely because of the embargo. With no access to American products, Cubans do not see what they have been forcibly denied. Castro can blame America rather than his own kleptomania / thuggery for the nation’s woes. End the sanctions on Cuba, and watch Castro topple.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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